


Warp and Weft

by InterNutter



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Fluff and Smut, Luume'irma, Mpreg, Multi, NGL this is a weird one, Reincarnation, Starts with the smut, technically intersex twins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-09
Updated: 2018-06-01
Packaged: 2019-05-04 09:11:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 24
Words: 23,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14589729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InterNutter/pseuds/InterNutter
Summary: Though Jeffandrew took back The Light, there is still an echo of it in the Bulwark Staff. Istus needs something special to make sure that the one remaining Grand Relic doesn't cause Faerun any more trouble.And what she has to work with is the last survivors of the Starblaster. Lup and Taako.[This is a very strange one, folks. Brace yourselves]





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: The Adventure Zone in general and the Balance Arc in particular belong to the marvellous McElroys. I just do awful things with it.
> 
> Pseudoscientific horseshit I’m pinning this fic on: One of the ways to have heterochromia is by merging with a fraternal twin in utero, and I’ve always headcannon’d that the Taaco twins have heterochromia.  
> In this fic, the Taaco twins merged with female twins and things got interesting from there. Technically intersex/hermaphrodites, but not really. I know it doesn’t work that way in the real world, don’t @ me.  
> Also this is not part of my cross-fic cannon. It’s this fic only. Just so you know.  
> My muse is a strange creature and takes me to weird places. I honestly mean no offence to anyone, and this fic took over my fucking life for two months. The next fic will be less incendiary, I promise.  
> I’m not saying “Don’t like, don’t read”, but if there’s anywhere I’ve been accidentally offensive, let me know how I can fix the thing. I am willing to learn from my glaring mistakes, and thanks in advance for your understanding.

Kravitz knew he was going to miss the midsummer eclipse when he was tackled by a randy Elf in the middle of Luume’irma.

“Want you,” Taako growled. Well. Not entirely Taako. His wisdom and intelligence had taken a nose-dive into the negatives, while his strength, stamina, and agility had rocketed as high as his libido was right now.

And worse, he was Sharing.

Kravitz barely had time to acknowledge that as the spell meant to assist him in keeping up with his husband took a firm grip on his body and mind. He could feel Lup in the mix, too; Sharing with Barry, who was Sharing with everyone.

A snake eating its own tail. Infinity incarnate. Ourobouros.

Kravitz wet his index finger in his own mouth as Taako -what remained of Taako- literally tore Kravitz’s clothes off. Including the little charm that would have made him obey gravity, no matter how much the pleasure he was experiencing might want to make him float. But that was no matter. He knew what Taako wanted. What he needed.

Intimately.

His moist finger probed the secret opening Taako had in the space just behind his balls. Little gripper nodules inside, soft projections of flesh, practically dragged his digit in wholesale. Taako made an urgent noise of pure need merged with frustration. He was ready. He was beyond ready.

So was Kravitz.

Even half mad with lust, he was careful. This secret soft space in Taako’s body was hypersensitive and had to be treated with the utmost care, for all that it was great for quick satiation during Luume. So when he entered Taako, he did so in slow, short bursts. Fighting the pull of Taako’s inner grippers at every turn. Watching Taako’s reactions and listening to his grunts and growls, using them all as a guide.

Lup had no such trouble, but she was in sync with Taako. Kravitz could feel them all. Taako’s need-versus-hurt, the ravening touch-hunger of Luume. He could feel Taako’s cramped, Elven vagina as if it was his own. How each gripper nodule was a firework of intense pleasure as they squeezed themselves against the hardness of Kravitz’s erection. He could feel his hands digging in to Taako’s hips as if he  _ was _ Taako. He was riding the highs and fighting the frustration.

Four became one as Taako’s shoulders delicately brushed the ceiling. Heartbeats pounded together. Need and want and pain and joy joined as one.

Kravitz rode the rush of  _ satisfaction _ as he filled Taako like a sausage about to burst its skin. Moaned and groaned with him as the grippers pulsed as one. And started to move just as Taako/Lup/Barry/He wanted him to.

Four bodies joined in a psychic/magical link. Synchronised in a perfect feedback loop.

Building slow and deep. Rising in pace and freneticism. Panting in an impossible need for too much air. Crying out together as they reached the inevitable peak. Clawing and urging and thrusting for each other.

Too fast.

Too furious.

Too wet.

Too much.

And in the moment they came, the Gods themselves cradled their souls in their hands.

Loving and guiding, they were all there.

Istus. Pan. The Raven Queen. Oghma. Cradling with one hand and guiding with the other.

_ Do not be afraid, _ they said as one.  _ This is as need be. _

And a moment of light and warmth and sheer  _ paradise _ that no mortal body is meant to know.

And then reality returned as the waves of orgasm shook their bodies from head to toe in microseizures of utter bliss. Floating down to the floor with Taako’s hair in his mouth and assorted fluids dripping down to the floor below as they came to rest like a falling feather.

Kravitz had time to admire Taako’s O-face as gravity resumed. He could feel Taako’s grippers attempting to suck his dick dry. And feel a wash of a secondary orgasm that the twins Shared.

And then the spell of Luume shattered like glass.

Kravitz was in himself. Heart pounding. Breath rapid and going out of sync with Taako’s. Hearing his own pulse in his ears and seeing spots. Hearing Taako’s descending moans as he, too, came down from the heights of paradise.

“Whoof,” said Taako. “Some rush. Hold me?”

“Sure,” Kravitz panted. Easing his white-knuckle grip on Taako’s hips and sliding his hands up that smooth, soft, wizard body. Guiding him into a gentle embrace. “You can talk. Early.”

Taako nuzzled at Kravitz’s neck. Inhaling deeply. “Mm-hm,” he sighed. “And I’m coherent. This is new for Taako.” Another semi-orgasmic tremor rode over him like a wave. His moan was softer and only slightly more seductive than his earlier cries. “Not complaining.”

The grippers were pummeling the fuck out of his dick. Trying to coax it into further action, or at least milking every drop of fluid out of it. Kravitz kissed Taako’s cheek. It was all he could reach, what with the Elf’s nose in his neck. “I’m spent, love. No encores.”

Taako rode another lesser tremor. “Mmmmmhhmmmm… I don’t control them, y’know. Just hold me close.”

Kravitz smoothed his hands over Taako’s back and rump. Up and down. There were small maps of ancient injuries, here and there. A past without access to clerics written in his skin. They were a rare and fascinating topography for Kravitz.

Taako seemed to slow down after four such tremors, and adopted a very lax sprawl over Kravitz, who enjoyed the pressure and warmth. Summer spread over him like a lazy blanket.

And then, without warning, Taako said, “I have a hankering for kale and eggs.”

“I’ll help you stagger to the kitchen if you’ll help me do the same,” he said. Only halfway joking. Luume-sex was  _ exhausting. _

They barely made it into robes, and had to use furniture to get to their feet. After that, it was a lot of leaning on things, and each other, and taking incredibly wobbly baby steps into the shared kitchen that was the heart of the home the twins shared with their husbands. Only to find Lup and Barry doing the same through another door. All were wearing shit-eating grins, though in Barry’s case, he was red as a beet.

A century of exposure to the twins’ ribald humour -and fifty years of that was regularly banging Lup- and he still blushed like someone’s maiden aunt.

“Kale and eggs?” he said.

“Yup,” said Kravitz.

“And cream,” said Taako.

“And cheese,” added Lup.

“And olives.”

“And mushrooms.”

“And bacon.”

“And that blood sausage from fantasy Britain.”

Kravitz and Barry both made faces at each other, but they still -wobbly all the way- gathered the ingredients. The result was an immense mass of a fry-up that was, to Kravitz’s eyes, disgusting to behold. Yet the twins yummed it up and barely left a speck of it.

A fact for which both husbands were secretly glad.

When they were done with that, and chugging an almost criminal amount of milk, both twins yawned and demanded bedtime cuddles. For which they insisted on being carried. In unison. It might have been disturbing, but they had been doing something similar for two hundred years and more.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TBH I forgot about the whole 'everyone dying in a reincarnation fic' thing. I'm a derpy derpy derpington dummins. Sorry about that.

Three Years Ago…

Ever since the Day of Story and Song, they had come together, aged and ageing and seemingly ageless, on the decks of the Starblaster -now in a museum- for a celebratory fluff piece about the Seven Birds. All in their uniforms, which they never wore on the actual day. All posing for portraits by eager journalists and their fantasy cameras.

And in less than half a century, there were less and less of them. 

Barry had died first, not that that put a crimp in his style, sex life, or daily duties in the slightest. Though he had his Lichy powers stripped away by the Raven Queen, he had Reaper powers to make up for it. Which meant that he could make his flesh form into any image he desired. If he wanted to.

What he wanted was what Lup wanted. And Lup wanted his forty-something ‘dad bod’ edition from when she fell in love with him. She revelled in his squishyness. For the twins, fat was a sign that things were good, and that they were doing something right.

Taako had also loved adding padding to Kravitz. Lavishing all kinds of delectable food on him until his abs turned into a tum. Which then became a source of groping fascination over the years.

Lucretia had not been far behind Magnus, on the roles of dying of old age. She had nodded over some Bureau of Benevolence paperwork and not woken up. Discovered by one of the many secretaries who took it in shifts to keep up with her to the very end.

For years, Davenport, Merle, Lup and Taako held up the portrait of them as they once were.

Merle was next to journey with Kravitz into the afterlife. At five hundred and two. Cheating at a game of Yooker with Davenport, and laughing so hard at being caught that he literally dropped dead on the spot.

And if you looked at the portraits of the remaining Birds, from the Day of Story and Song to the current one, you would see the smiles gradually get faker and faker, and then fade away entirely as Davenport aged to an early grey. And stop being present for this portrait.

There were whispers that Captain Davenport steered his personal yacht into the storm on purpose. Some said he was trying to rescue others who were caught in the middle of it. Others said that there really  _ were _ dragons where the map said they were.

Either way, his body was found on a beach, just days before this portrait session.

The twins’ three hundred and fiftieth birthdays.

There are no smiles to be seen, as Lup holds up the left corner of the portrait and Taako clings to the right. They have black armbands on their old uniforms that reek of mothballs, and they glare at the fantasy cameras as if they are worse than traitors.

Behind the painted canvas of happier days, Taako’s right hand lets go of Lup’s left, and he changes his grip on the picture’s gilt frame. And his gaze drifts away to stare at the console behind them. His left hand drifts towards the controls… grasps the lever that could still start the ship…

“Koko, uh-uh.” His sister has seen what he’s doing and seemingly read his mind.

He doesn’t shrink away from it. Just... slumps.

“Two jumps,” he says, “Away and back again. We could have them back, Lulu. We can reset and have them all ba--” His voice dies in his throat. Fresh tears are pouring down his cheeks.

Only now do the assembled members of the press notice that his hair is curling inside its tight braids.

Lup doesn’t shout. She doesn’t rage. She says, “What will you tell Kravitz? What will you say to him to tell Ango… in case we can’t come back? What will you say to Ren?”

Taako breaks down, and Lup catches him. “I want them back,” he wails. “I want them all back!” Their husbands swarm in from the sidelines, where they had been regularly banished. The old portrait is gently put down.

But that is not the end of the day.

There’s always a party, here, in the town that grew up around the museum that contained the Starblaster. Where the Birds make a toast and there’s a re-enactment of the dramatic events by a bunch of star talents. The best bards. The best actors. The best food. The best wine.

This year, Taako’s toast is simple. Holding aloft a glass of champagne that he will still not be able to taste. “To absent friends,” he says, “until we meet again.”

Glasses clink. Champagne is sipped.

And the twins vanish from reality without a trace. Their glasses fall to the ground, and even their husbands are shocked. Neither of them can find their spouse’s souls.


	3. Chapter 3

It was, Taako had to admit, a very nice pocket reality. Tasteful. Refined. And all his friends were there. And so were four gods.

Istus, always working with her needles. Pan. Oghma. And the Raven Queen.

“Oh shit. It’s an intervention,” said Lup.

“Almost,” said Istus.

“There are things you need to know,” said Oghma.

“A plan that needs to come to pass,” said Istus.

“A fate you must meet,” said the Raven Queen.

“Children who must be born,” said Pan.

Taako reached out without thinking and found Lup’s hand reaching for his. His right in her left. As it always was, since the days they were born. Excepting the fourteen years that they were separated.

Istus smiled at that. “You were born holding hands.This you know.”

“What you don’t know,” said Oghma, “is that your fates are as closely intertwined.”

Pan said, “Every goal you have accomplished, you have done so together. You were born together.”

Lup mumbled something about forty-five minutes and Taako rolled his eyes.

“You travelled together. Almost always,” said Istus. “The only times you were apart were from the intervention and force of others.”

Taako shivered. The lonely times were never the best. Missing her like a chunk taken out of his soul. Even when he couldn’t remember her, he tried to fill that absence with lovers and bad habits and grasping desperately for fame.

“You will, eventually, pass within minutes of each other,” said the Raven Queen. “But that is not a matter of discussion, in this time.”

“We’ve been searching,” said Oghma, “for the next Staff-bearer.”

Taako fucking hated the Bulwark Staff. Even though the Light had been taken back by Jeffandrew, it still held an echo of its power. And its thrall.

“Uh,” said Taako. “You need a genetic descendant, right? Merle had that sewn up with Mookie. Right?”

“Mookie will never wield the staff,” said Istus. “He would succumb to the thrall.”

“We need a stronger hold,” said Pan. “Descendants… who are also re-incarnated Birds.”

Istus was grinning like an asshole. “You’re going to  _ conceive _ together.”

Taako pointed to himself. “Still a dude, m’dude.”

“Not completely,” said Pan.

“Remember what Raxell said,” prompted Oghma, “when he was changing Lulu?”

The memory appeared between them all. Eighteen years old. Scrawny as fuck. Desperate and hurting, each in their different ways. And the memory of Raxell said, “Hm. Half my work is done.”

“She already had a uterus,” said Oghma. “And so do you.”

“The path will be made clear,” said Pan. “And you will be ready on the two hundredth year since you first set foot on this world.”

“...son of a bitch,” murmured Taako. “I’m gonna be pregnant? I’m gonna have mad dysphoria for an entire fucking year? More?”

“As always, your sister will help you. And your husband will love you.”

Istus said, “It will happen on Lup’s birthday. The eclipse is important magic for this working.”

“Alpha twin,” Lup singsonged.

“Shut up, I’m still technically fourteen years older than you.”

Pan said, “You will birth a new species. They will be known as Staffbearers, and for seven times seven lifetimes, one in each generation will be a Bird come back to roost.”

“Except for this first generation,” said Oghma.

“All four Birds will come again to this world. And live and die and love. To live and die again. For seven times seven generations, the new breed will breed true.”

“Us too, I presume,” said Lup. “And soulmates, too.”

“Oh yes,” said the Raven Queen. “Love cannot be broken easily. Your bonds and your bonded will come with you.”

“Ugh. I’m gonna be grampa or grunkle to Ango…”

“You were parent to him, once. This will not be different.”

“You will not know which soul is born to whom,” said Oghma. “That would cause… some friction.”

Lup looked to Taako. “Are you  _ still _ salty about Luce?”

“She made me forget you. That hurts. Still.”

She sighed. “You are  _ such _ an idiot, baby brother.”

“This is  _ exactly _ what I’m talking about, kids,” said Oghma. “Chill.”

Istus paused in her thread-work. “This is all the time we can give you.”

Pan said, “Fates will align to see you fit for your destiny.”

“They’re going to be beautiful,” said Oghma.

The Raven Queen said, “You can not tell your husbands until the second trimester. Even then, they may not believe you until it’s obvious.”

And then they were back in the museum. Hand in hand. Looking very surprised.

“Sorry about that,” said Lup.

“Divine intervention,” said Taako. “Need to stop hitting the wine so hard.”

Kravitz raised a sculpted eyebrow. He was one of the few in the room who could tell that Taako had just told one of his plausible-deniability lies.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for vomit mentions in this chapter.

Now…

The twins were prone to napping a lot, following this unusual bout of Luume. They would cuddle together when their husbands were not home and drowse.

Barry thought it was a little weird that the Raven Queen hadn’t called his wife since her birthday, but Her Eternal Majesty knew what she was doing.

Kravitz was working on a recipe from a page in  _ Comfort Food for the Incompetent Chef, _ a book the twins had written together because both of their husbands didn’t know a skillet from a spatula, and were equally capable of burning water. It was a wildcat bestseller.

This one was a potato soup with leeks and small pieces of interesting things in it. Because when the twins weren’t sleepy, they were usually nauseated.

If Barold didn’t know better, he’d swear Lup was pregnant, but Taako? With the same symptoms? He’d heard of twin telepathy and phantom feeling, but this was… unnaturally ridiculous.

Therefore, it had to be some weird Elf disease or syndrome that had them feeling down. He kept researching and Kravitz kept applying palliative care.

The good news was that, when they ate, they ate  _ ravenously _ . Eating twice as much as they usually would in something close to half the time.

And they were not giving out any clues about whatever was ailing them. When either Barry or Kravitz asked them about what they needed, the twins’ answer was always the same.

“You’re doing just fine. We’re cool.”

The sex was still amazing. In fact, the twins had slightly more energy in the evenings than usual. Though they both slept with their noses in their husband’s necks. Inhaling deeply on occasion. And… the weirdest part of the puzzle…

Their purring had changed. It was softer and more soothing. Not the raucous rumble that signified they were feeling safe and secure and comfortable. But a softer, more somnalistic rattle as they slept.

He was worried. He asked his boss. He even spoke to some other, visiting gods. All he got out of them was, “All is as it was ordered.”

And his boss wasn’t letting him visit Magnus any more. The little cabin on an island in the sea of souls was out of his reach. Too distant to see.

What had he done?

What was going on?

“Stop it,” said Kravitz, carefully stirring.

Barry felt guilty about something else. “Stop what? I wasn’t doing anything. I certainly wasn’t thinking it was my fault. At all.”

Kravitz smirked. “Thanks for that overly specific denial. Now I know you were blaming yourself. The twins are fine. Our local cleric checked them out while you were at work, today.”

“What’d Kracbon say?”

“I quote:  _ It’s all perfectly natural, tell Barold to get his undies out of a twist.” _

“He said that?”

“His exact words. And for the record, the twins didn’t even wake up when he was over. Amazing considering that he has the stealth capabilities of an avalanche.”

Taako, halfway wrapped around his sister, stretched and yawned through a purr. Sniffing the air.

Kravitz smiled warmly for him. “Have a nice rest, love?”

“Cosy enough, bone daddy.” Taako stretched his way into an upright stance. Which he immediately regretted. “Ugh. Minute.” He raced off to the nearest bathroom.

“Koko, you fucking fink!” Lup was not far behind, but perforce, racing for a different bathroom.

Barry, in the middle of some research reading, cringed at the sounds of Elves ralphing in stereo. “Whatever’s effecting them has to be the same thing… and since they’re different genders, it can’t be… the only one that would fit with Lup.”

Kravitz shrugged, dishing up two small bowls of the soup and adding toasted croutons. “He could be in sympathy.”

“Taako? Sympathy?” Barry frowned. “They  _ are _ identical twins… It could be a telepathic link… or some of their Bonds… They’ve always had unbelievably strong Bonds…” He stared into nothing for a pace. “I’d need to do some maths…”

An occupation that he was deep into by the time the twins made it to the table.

Taako mumbled something in the language he shared with Lup, who just patted his back and said their word for ‘eat’.

Kravitz looked to Barry, who knew more of their tongue. Barry… was not at home. So he cracked. “Okay. Love. Lup. We’re worried about you. We just need to know… are you going to be okay?”

Lup smiled. “We’re fine, babe. This is… this is new, but it’s normal.”

Taako was licking his spoon. “We literally can’t tell you what it is until after the Fall Equinox.”

“Sorry, babe. And even if my brilliant hubby figures something out, we can’t confirm  _ or _ deny.”

Taako held out his now-empty bowl. “More? I’m starving.”

“All that napping must be hard work,” Kravitz snarked.

Taako smiled. “Super-secret twin busines, bone daddy. And yeah. What we’re doing  _ is _ exhausting, thank you for noticing. Just two more months, sweetie, and we can fill you in. Promise.”

“I’m going to mark my calendar,” Kravitz threatened. A single black feather floated down in front of him. He caught it before it could get in any soup. “My queen needs me.”

Barold’s got stuck in his glasses. The Raven Queen had learned how to get his attention. “Oh,” he said, and, “bother. Uh. Are you two going to be okay looking after each other?”

“Doy,” said Lup. “Of course.”

“We’ve been looking after each other since we were babies.”

“We’re not going anywhere.”

“Or doing very much.”

“We’ll be fine, babe.” Lup blew him a kiss. “Go to work.”

“Take names and kick ass, honey,” said Taako, kissing his husband.

It was the hardest thing to do, to walk away from Taako. Whatever their secret twin business was, he would find out in the middle of autumn.


	5. Chapter 5

Taako and Lup watched their husbands go through their rifts. Going to work. Only they and the Raven Queen (and the three other gods involved) knew why Lup was on the Reaper Bench.

“They’re too good for us,” sighed Taako.

“Mmm,” cooed Lup.

“We don’t deserve them,” he sniffled.

Lup punched his arm. “Don’t you dare. We finally have something good here. We’ve earned it. We deserve  _ all _ the good things, bro-bro.”

“He’s so nice and kind and helpful,” he snivelled. “...’n I’ve been a horrible person…”

Lup sighed, “Aaaand the hormones are kicking in.” She wrapped her arm around his shoulder. “Let it out. Let it all out.”

It was a litany of his lovers, his checkered history. She knew all about their checkered history, but Taako insisted on retelling it like it was the worst thing ever. Even though they both knew perfectly well that it was a survival thing at the time. And he got maudlin over the twelve years that he forgot he had the best sister in the multiverse.

Lup let him cry it out.

“It’s just the hormones, babe. You’re okay.”

“Best sister,” sighed Taako, sort of slumped into her shoulder.

Lup said, “Best brother, too.” Patted his back. Kissed his brow. “Feel better for all that?”

“Yeah.” Taako steadied his breathing and wiped his face. “Know what I want to do now?”

“Pig out on fantasy ice cream and go nap in a sunbeam?”

“Well, yeah. After. But what I really wanna do is… I wanna look after my man.”

Lup grinned. “Shit yeah. A fucking best-meal-ever for our best dudes! All their faves. They deserve it.”

That brightened him up a lot. “Hells yeah. Let’s get a fucking spree going. ‘S been a while. And our boys have been super good at leaving us lots of yummy ingredients to work with,” he opened up the fantasy refrigerator and their shared pantry. “Just look at all this shit.”

Lup did the frying and anything involving flame, but they both knew better than to use magic in their current condition. Everything was all by hand. Taako took the portion of the feast that needed careful measuring, timing and management. Lup made sure he didn’t pour acres of garlic into everything, and he made sure she didn’t add gallons of hot sauce.

And somewhere in the middle of it all, a form of nesting instinct took over and they mutually obsessed over the layout of the table.

But their manic phase could not last. Growing one new intelligent lifeform was hard work. They had two each, and that took a toll. Once the table and the counters were fully loaded, the sunbeam drew them in with its irresistible allure. Besides, they both agreed that they’d done all that they could do without completely rebuilding the dining room. And they sure as shit didn’t have the energy or time to do  _ that. _

Screw that noise.

They’d worked hard. Harder than they’ve done since… well… their mutual efforts at conception. And now the sunbeam was calling them.

So it was perfectly logical to curl up together in a soft place in the sunbeam, where Taako had arranged sunbeams to happen, centuries prior, and just rest their eyes for a minute.

When the air tore like a sound of rent silk, it was after dark. Both twins popped their heads up from their cuddle puddle and then rushed to their respective beloveds. Even when he was still a bit chilly from the Astral Plane, it was good to kiss and hold her man. Her squishy tubby hubby, the sexy gorgeous soft beast.

Taako was all over his man, too. They were both like bad rashes. Both craving the scent of their chosen mates. Both hormonally compelled to reward their respective husbands with good food, better snuggles, and as much mind-blowing sex as they could take. At least, that was the plan. And a damn good plan it was, too.

Kravitz whistled at the spread. “Is there an occasion?” he asked.

“It’s more of a thank-you feast,” said Taako.

“Yup,” Lup agreed. “Thanks, both of you, for putting up with our collective secret-twin-business horseshit. And thanks in advance for putting up with it for two more months before we get to fill you in.”

“You are literally the best spouses we could ask for,” said Taako. “I dunno what the fuck we did to deserve you, but I’m starting the bribery to keep you around.”

“Bribery accepted,” said Barry, lifting a cover and smelling a dish.

“Oh, I know I can’t get rid of  _ you, _ Barold,” said Taako.

“Bribery not needed, Dove,” purred Kravitz, who bent to inhale at Taako’s neck.

Taako laughed. “Krav, what the fuck?”

“Just seeing what the allure is,” he said. Sniffing again. “Gods… you smell  _ good. _ Fresh pancakes and spring flowers good.”

Barry came up to Lup for a hug. “Lemme in on some of that nose news, sweet thing?”

Lup bent so he could sniff her. “Have at it, babe.” She giggled as he did so. Nobody told her how much it tickled!

“Oh man. I could get high off’a that supply.”

Both twins spoke together, “Eat first, then snort me. ‘Kay?”

Spouses paired off, each Elf sitting in their lovemate’s lap. Taking turns feeding their husbands and being fed by them. All snuggles and purrs and bonding and being completely sappy about each other and loving the fuck out of it.

Letting her lovely tubby hubby sniff her had bought out his hyper-affectionate side. Those deep brown eyes of his were goopy in love with her all over again. Lup adored it when she could do that to him. She’d never get tired of that soppy look in his eyes.

And she figured she’d never get tired of that look between her brother and her boss, either. Happy together. In spite of all the sadness around them.


	6. Chapter 6

Taako figured out that there might be trouble when he woke up under a canopy of black feathers. Clutched tight in the grip of his beloved husband. Who had evidently been watching Taako sleep.

“Sugar skull?” Taako attempted to think despite being sleep-fogged. He never had been nor would he ever be a morning person.

“You’re beautiful when you sleep,” murmured Kravitz.

“You didn’t sleep with me?” Taako figured that was a fair bet. Kravitz didn’t exactly need to sleep. Or eat. Or do any one of a million mortal things. But none of that meant that he hadn’t grown to enjoy them thoroughly. Especially once sharing them with Taako.

“I had to guard you from the night,” said Kravitz, gently brushing Taako’s cheek. “There are demons in the darkness that could steal your breath.”

Taako tried to fit that in with any kind of rational thought whilst using maybe twenty percent of his total brainpower. “Like you, right? You take my breath away every day, babe.” And made ready for some high-quality smooching.

Which didn’t come. Kravitz was -pardon the pun- dead serious. “I must protect you,” he said. “I can’t be distracted by my love, my love.”

Taako found a good reason to giggle. “Protect me? Darling, I’m like level infinity. I’m a big, bad-ass wizard with a direct line to the gods. And I’m taking it easy this year. The wards on our property are top notch  _ and _ recently refreshed. We’ll be fine.” Whoops. Was that going to give it all away?

Kravitz didn’t seem to notice the verbal slip. He just kept gently caressing Taako’s cheek and ear. Running his fingers through Taako’s hair. Gently. Carefully. “Mortal. So fragile. So brief. So… delicate…”

“There’s twenty-five more years before I’m even middle-aged, darling. What are you on about?”

“There are never enough days,” said Kravitz. “And too much danger. Everywhere. In everything.”

Those feathers were wings. Kravitz’s wings. Sheltering them both from the outside world. “What’s with the wings, babe?” Taako tickled them. Grinned as  they twitched.

“I must shelter you from danger.”

Oh. Kay. “Well, babe, right now, I’m in danger of throwing up on my new satin sheets. Lemme at the bathroom? Kay?”

Kravitz picked him up and carried him to the ensuite, and gently arranged him near the toilet. And hovered.

Anxiously.

Taako fought to quell his roiling stomach. “Do you mind, sweetie? I like to spew in private.”

Kravitz hovered a moment more, clearly torn, before exiting to stand just outside the door.

Taako didn’t have much time to wonder what was going on with him, because the morning retch sesh was most definitely underway. Half an hour of dangerous burping and the occasional incident of acid reflux and definitely feeling awful in the innards department before it was all over and he could maybe start with a glass of cool water.

Only this time, there was a guardian angel in the form of his husband. Delightfully deshabille though he was, there was something… wrong. If he wasn’t human, Taako would have sworn he was having a mild case of Luume’irma and had somehow sniffed out the pregnancy.

Could he deal with that for two more months?

“I will find the thing that’s hurting you and destroy it,” Kravitz vowed.

Okay, probably not.

“Sweetheart. Babe. Love. Darling. Don’t say stuff you might regret, okay? This…” How to say it without saying it? “It’s a short-term bad sitch for long-term great benefits. Okay?”  _ Gods, please, let it be like that. _ He’d heard war stories from other gestating people. Nausea for the entire term. Wicked bad complications. Spotting. Early labour… “I have gods on my side,” he said more for himself than his husband. “It’s all according to plan.”

Kravitz scooped him up and carried him downstairs to the heart of the house. The kitchen. Where Lup was in Barold’s similarly hypnotised arms.

“You too?” they said together.

“Mine’s lapsed into Dogespeak,” said Lup.

“Mine’s gone into Luume, I swear,” said Taako.

Now that they were in the kitchen, both husbands were like lost little lambs. Big, angelic, lost lambs, for sure. And with their arms full of Elven spouse, they couldn’t actually prepare any food. And yet, they daren’t put their main squeezes down.

“This’d be fun to watch from the outside,” Lup speculated.

“Possibly hilarious,” Taako agreed.

Barry was attempting to formulate a thought. “Much danger. So bad. All the sharps, giving me frighten.” This had to be a Reaper thing. Something the Raven Queen had done.

“We need Bird Mom,” Taako decided.

Both husbands said, “Our Queen! We can take them to our Queen!”

“NO!” That would fuck  _ everything _ up in the worst possible way. The reincarnated souls inside them would just fly on back to the afterlife and they’d have to start all over again at the next midsummer.  _ Oh please sweet Istus, if I ever needed an intervention… _

And right on time, a raven entered their house. You could tell it was a divine entity by the way it completely ignored the fact that there were windows and walls in the way.

“Cease,” it commanded in the voice of the Raven Queen.

Both husbands froze in place.

The bird looked at the resultant tableaux. Two undead reaper husbands cradling their respective spouses. Both with their shirts off and their wings out. Both holding tight to their loves and figuring out how to do that  _ and _ summon the scythes that would take them into the next world. Taako had no doubt that this Queen’s Emissary could see every soul in the room. All eight of them.

“Lup and Taako must remain in the world of the living, this is my decree,” said the bird.

Lup breathed the words, “Thank you.”

Taako tried to tell his heart that it could slow the fuck down, now.

“Kravitz.”

“Yes, my Queen.”

“You have served me longer, and thus feel your Reaper instincts more keenly. You must be tempered. Put your love down and come ye hither.”

Kravitz obeyed, but he put Taako down like someone resting a very expensive glass on top of a house of cards. The Raven Queen’s orders may have trumped everything else, but only by a very thin margin. Taako could see the battle between the two attractive forces in Kravitz’s eyes.

Kravitz knelt, and the bird emissary hopped across the counter to rest its beak tip on Kravtiz’s third-eye point.

“Be at peace.”

Kravitz… shrank. Back to more mortal dimensions. The wings transformed into his feathered cloak, and then it evaporated.

The same ritual played out with Barry with slightly more stunned results.

“Wow,” he said. “That was… intense.”

The emissary was still there. “You are fine husbands, and worthy of this test,” it said. “I bid you be patient. All will be revealed in the appointed time. Kravitz… curb your anger. Rest assured there will be celebration when the time comes.”

Then the bird vanished.

“You good, now, babe?” asked Lup.

Barry sat rather heavily on the floor. “I… don’t… know…”

Kravitz turned to Taako as he stood. A little wobbly on his feet, but more… himself… than previously. “Is that what Luume’s like for you?”

“Probably,” allowed Taako. “You were doing a remarkable impersonation, there, broseph.” He let his husband get a hug and a kiss. “Now. I don’t know about you, but I’m in the mood for some eggs and kale.”

Both husbands, knowing what this was going to mean, said, “I’ll just have some cereal.”


	7. Chapter 7

Summer faded into Autumn, and Taako gradually got over throwing up or retching every morning, but that nausea was apparently replaced with a bladder the size of a grape. Together, they got to know the location and hours of every public bathroom in or near Neverwinter. And it still wasn’t yet time to know what the hell was going on with the twins.

He found himself counting down to the equinox. Dreading and anticipating the news in equal measure. Barry was twice as nervous, given that Lup was still a living entity with lichy edges. Anything could be happening. Anything at all.

Kravitz took his lead from the twins, who were seemingly pleased and happy by the goings on.

Just last week, in the middle of decor shopping, Taako froze in place and got a freaked-out look on his face. And then he laughed. And avoided all of Kravitz’s questions with a very Istus-like, “Spoilers.”

He knew they were up to something. As the days counted down into double digits, they started planning things in their private tongue. Speaking low and rapidly, then stopping and staring at anyone who entered the room.

And then came the Big Dinner. On the night of the Autumn Equinox.

The day Kravitz and Barry had been waiting for.

Slow-roasted lamb with baby carrots, baby peas, and baby squash. The central arrangement had a lot of baby’s breath in it. And there were baby cupcakes for dessert.

And a little parcel for both him and Barry.

“I keep telling you, this is too coy,” argued Lup. “They haven’t got it.”

“This’ll fuckin’ give it to them,” countered Taako.

Kravitz lifted the lid of the little box to find two pacifiers inside. “What the shit, Taako?”

“Told you so,” said Lup.

“Yes, you’re  _ so _ smart. Read the label, bone daddy.”

There was a ribbon on the topmost one that said,  _ Who is Dad? You is Dad! _

And a card attached to the second one with Taako’s neatest scrawl within.  _ It’s going to be twins. _

Across the table, Barry was freaking out. “Y- you’re pregnant?”

“Yup,” said Lup, popping the final P. “We both are, babe. Taako and I… Not you and me.”

Kravitz’s hands were shaking. He stared at the pacifiers. He stared at Taako. He stared, dumbfounded, at the floral arrangement that, in retrospect, screamed,  _ New family incoming! _ He boggled at Taako.  _ “How?” _

“You remember that special eclipse and why we missed it, darling,” said Taako. “And how we were… weird? After?”

“That was-- but… Barry and I have been dead for years…”

“Special circumstances plus fate plus the will of the gods, sweetie,” said Taako. He got that poleaxed expression on his face again and put a hand over his lower abdomen. “I only started feeling them last week and I couldn’t freak out around you and give it away. But now they’re out of immediate danger and--”

Barry exploded in glee, bursting out of his chair and scooping up his wife. “Oh my gods, this is the best news! We tried for so long and now it’s happening! It’s really happening! I’m a dad! You’re a mom! How did- Why didn’t- Oh my gods… Best. News. EVER!” And then realisation hit like a bucket of ice water. “Shit. Fuck. I nearly dragged you into the Astral Plane while you were-- GODS! I can’t take you there for the rest of the year! You can’t go.”

“I know, babe. Bird Mom benched me since conception happened. We’re cool.”

“And the thing with the raven and the protective instincts,” said Kravitz, putting two and two together.

“You smelled our babies on me,” Taako nodded. “And then you tried to treat me like a nestling. It was cute. For a while.”

Kravitz was rather more careful at scooping up his husband. And his wings did come out and wrap around Taako in a protective hunch. “You were right,” he said. “I do regret wanting revenge. Just--  _ how _ the fuck…?”

Taako gently pushed his wings back to resting position and slow-danced with him. “Like every other important thing in our lives…”

“...we had to do it together,” said Lup. Also dancing with her husband. “In perfect sync. With unique circumstances, and during the most fertile time we had.”

“And with four special souls waiting for rebirth,” added Taako.

Kravitz stopped. Things were slotting into place. “Four birds reborn,” he murmured. He put his hand over Taako’s abdomen. Some divine force wasn’t letting him See the souls. “Do you know who?”

“We’re not supposed to,” said Lup.

“It’d cause problems,” said Taako.

“They won’t be fully incorporated until later on, anyway. They could be swapping around for all we know.”

“They’re just… sorta… hanging around, I guess,” Taako shrugged. “Waiting to move in completely, so to speak.”

“That’ll happen long about Spring, for sure,” said Lup. “When their new selves are almost fully formed.”

Kravitz was only just beginning to freak out. His husband was pregnant. With twins. The waning summer and the waxing fall had been full of morning sickness. “What happens now?”

“Usual pregnancy stuff. Mood swings. Nesting…” Taako shrugged.

“Increased libido. Bonding urges. Mad sprees of activity…” added Lup.

“Napping…”

“Lots of napping.”

“Fuckloads of napping.”

“Shit-tons of napping.”

“Oh, and me freaking out every time I feel them,” said Taako. “I’ve got little beings growing inside of me. And they’re supposed to be there. And it’s terrifying the fuck outta me.”

Lup disengaged from Barry to hold her brother from behind. “Breathe, baby bro. We’ve got this. For what it’s worth, I’m freaking out, too. We don’t got a lot of memories of good parenting to fall back on.”

Taako sighed. “Yeah. Shit. We need a fuckload of parenting books. I’ve only got nine more months to study!”

“I said  _ breathe, _ baby brother. Deep breaths, now.”

Kravitz guided Taako’s nose to the spot he liked to sniff. “Inhale, Dove.”

Sniiiifffffffff… And the tightening curls went lax.

“Okay,” Taako allowed. “Maybe I’m a little more freaked out than I thought…”

“Understatement,” said Barry, joining the family hug. “We got your back Taako. It’s going to be all right.”


	8. Chapter 8

The first snowfall treated Taako to the fact that he’d ‘popped’. He now had a baby bump. A teeny tiny barely-noticeable baby bump. And regular flutters of the twins within. No longer surprising and delicate, but definite and definitely getting monotonous.

Taako lowered his sweatpants and lifted his sweater to check his profile. Sure, his ass was getting big, but his middle… not so much. Someone would have to feel his guts to know there was a firmness there.

Babies on board.

He couldn’t feel them on the outside, yet. Neither could Kravitz. Which was okay. And Kravitz loved groping him to feel where they were growing. He’d have a field day with  _ this. _ An actual baby bump.

Taako didn’t know whether to be excited or horrified. Or sick to his stomach.

He was getting moobs. He was getting wider hips. His whole body was changing from manly to matronly.

Lup barged in with a big grin. “I got a baby bump,” she whispered in excitement and glee. Of course she was excited and ecstatic. She’d wanted babies of her own ever since Raxell did his magic on her at age eighteen.

This was all for her.

Taako managed half a smile at her big grin. “I got one too,” he whispered, so as not to wake his slumbering spouse.

Lup groped his. He felt hers. “Still freaking out?” she asked.

“Like fuck,” he answered.

She moved their hands out of the way and touched bumps. “Baby bump bump.”

Now he could really smile. He was getting his crew back. Different from before, of fucking course. And Lup was getting her dream of having a real family. Home grown.

“My family, too,” he said, holding his own bump. “Home grown.”

“Hey,” said Lup. “Don’t let me fuck this up and I won’t let you fuck this up.”

“Deal,” smiled Taako.

Lup had a book. “And speaking of, I have a whole shit-ton of stuff we’re just not allowed to eat for the rest of the year.”

Gods, what a fucking list. Taako read it with growing unease, in spite of Kravitz waking to feel him up and kiss him all over.

Of course  _ he _ was delighted with the baby bump. He didn’t have to fucking gestate it. On the plus side, he was super cute about it too. And sappy. And romantic. And goopy in love. And eager to volunteer solidarity and never eat anything on the twins’ new no-no list.

Okay. Maybe Taako could admit he had lucked out with Kravitz.

Then he did the protective bird-daddy thing and tried to guard Taako from both his sister and Barold.

“Sugar? Cool it?”

Make that… most of the time.

“Our babies,” protested Kravitz.

That did it. “Krav. I’m begging you. Sniff Lup.”

He did. And Barry sniffed Taako. Both reaper husbands got this real addled look in their eyes for a solid minute. But the pheromone message got through to their protective instincts. They were all a family together.

On the other hand, it now meant that  _ both _ reaper husbands would wrap a protective wing shield around the twins at random-ass moments… but they could at least be talked down pretty quick.

And then… there was the  _ fussing. _

Doting husbands, they could generally appreciate. There were more than a few occasions in which a foot-rub, back-rub, or generalised fetching could be appreciated. And the twins had lucked out on the benevolent touch front, since their husbands were the affectionate kind.

But now?

They had husbands randomly checking on them. Making sure they were comfortable. Making sure they had enough to eat. Escorting them up and down stairs whenever either of them decided to go there. Peeking in when the twins were napping. Forming an honour guard when they went shopping.

And enthusiastically bringing home random baby accessories. Baby clothes. Baby shoes. Cribs. Bassinets. Soft toys. Sensory toys. Mobiles. Wall decals. Curtains. Fantasy swing-a-majigs.

Taako drew the line at diapers.

“We’re only four months along my dears,” he said. “Quit it.”

Which then lead to a stream of fashionable and quite lovely  _ maternity gear. _ Taako had thoroughly planned to spend the entirety of his gestation in sweats and muumuus, but Kravitz… had absorbed Taako’s fashion sense by osmosis. And brought home all kinds of beautiful things for Taako -and by extension, Lup- to wear. Beautiful, flowy tops. Skirts that could be worn above or below the equator. Leggings with plenty of stretch. Capelets and cloaks and mufflers and scarves and -yes- even ear-socks to keep them warm in the winter chill. Warm boots that promised to be kind to his swelling feet.

And blankets to match the decor, with every kind of purpose.

Taako may have previously turned his nose up at a fantasy snuggie, but reading and snoozing were becoming closely related activities, and Kravitz actually found more than one that Taako could accept being seen dead in. Well. Dead to the world in.

Which he could not be at the moment because Ren had just barged in. Carrying bags of shopping. “I just heard the news,” she said. “It was a bit foggy, because rumour mill, but I know that The Twins are having twins! Eeee!”

Gods bless her, she was still a fangirl after all this time. “We were sleeping,” complained Taako.

“You were sleeping,” mumbled Lup, keeping her eyes closed. “I’m still trying for it.”

Ren boggled a little as she put the bags on the table. “Taako?  _ You’re _ in sympathy? I’d have pegged Barold to be that nervous for sure.”

Well, it was already all over the world if Ren knew about it… “Not quite, dear. Both twins are having twins. It’s the will of the Gods.”

“Dude… you’re a dude.”

“Not completely. Turns out I had the equipment the whole time, but it took some divine intervention to get it working, so to speak,” He stretched and gave up on lying down, shedding the fantasy snuggie as he went. “What’d you get us?”

“I figured at least one husband went overboard, so… A lot of chocolate.”

“Nice,” Taako almost didn’t notice that Ren was body-checking him. “What?”

“You don’t look pregnant,” she said.

“Four months, Ren. Four months along. Honestly. You’ve had like five of your own by now. You should know that you don’t go from conception to smuggling watermelons overnight. Oooh the seashell ones...”

“Gimmie!” Lup demanded from her apparent coma.

“Oh, I couldn’t possibly wake my dearest sister from her much-needed sleep,” cooed Taako, voice dipped in acid.

Lup popped up like a vengeful spirit. “Destiny or no destiny, I will fucking kill you if you eat all of the seashell ones on me.”

“It’s a miracle,” Taako handed a box over. “That, and Ren was smart enough to get us one each of the good shit.”

Ren launched into war stories, semi-detailed accounts of each of her five pregnancies and what she had gone through at the twins’ current stage of development. She was very careful to keep the horrifying stuff to a minimum.

She was just the first.

Their entire extended family was ‘just popping by’ over the next few months. Ren. Ren’s kids. The  _ entire _ McDonald clan. The Fangbattle-Dusktooths. And the Highchurches. And every single female who came by also had to share the things that nearly went horribly wrong with their own gestations.

Exactly the wrong sort of thing to tell a naturally-anxious Taako.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gross childbbirth nightmare warning for this chapter.

Taako opened his eyes to see his enormous belly and an entire fucking crowd of random strangers in fantasy surgical gear. One of them was wearing a plague mask.

“What the fuck?”

“Today’s the day,” cheered one of the strangers.

“We have to cut those babies out of your body,” said another.

Taako watched his belly wobble from within. “What?”

“Narrow hips,” said a third.

“Can’t give birth,” said a fourth.

“And you’re having some  _ big _ boys,” said the one in the plague mask.

A sharp pain, and Magnus came out of there. Muscles, armour, axe and all. “MAGNUS RUSHES OUT!” In fact, he had used Rail Splitter to make his own egress.

Followed by old Lucretia, robe, notepad and quill already going. She had high heels on and was blithely standing on his liver. “Substandard performance,” she said. “Accommodations need work.”

Taako was screaming. In pain. In terror. He struggled to get free of these grinning maniacs holding him down…

Love.

...and there was his blood everywhere…

Dove.

...and everything hurt…

Cool lips on his cheek. Careful fingers stroking his ears. Feathers tickling his naked body.

“Come back to me, my Dove,” said Kravitz’s voice. “You’re safe. You’re okay. Talk to me? Tell me five things you can see.”

The dream faded out, vivid colours replaced by the greys of night-time. “Window. Wings. Curtains. Bedside table. Glass of water.”

“Breathe,” said Kravitz.

Taako took a deep and shuddering breath. Sobbed as he let it out. “I was,” gasp, “due and,” gasp, “they cut,” gasp, “their way out,” gasp, “and--”

Kravitz’s hands soothed their way along his body. “Deep breaths, Taako. Tell me four things you can hear.”

His breaths caught in his throat. “Your voice. Lup bitching in the next room. I woke her up, I’m a failure as a brother…”

“Two more things you can hear, Taako. Don’t get derailed, now. Two more.”

“I can hear the wind.” It was easier to breathe, now. “And… an owl just caught a mouse.”

“Good for the owl,” said Lup. “Night terrors, baby bro?”

“Yeah,” said Kravitz. “Tell me three things you can feel, now. You’ve got this.”

Lup sat on the other side of him.

“I… feel… my husband. My sister. Close to me. Does that count as two?”

“We’ll allow it,” said Lup.

Flutter, flutter, not so flutter, inside him. They were getting stronger. “I can feel my babies moving.”

“Good, good,” said Lup.

Kravitz kissed his cheek. “Two things you can smell, Taako. You’re nearly there.”

Taako couldn’t help but grin. “My sister and her best nerd have had sex some time around midnight.” He leaned over and got a good lungful of his husband. “And the best fucking Reaper husband in the world.”

“I might fight you on that one,” chuckled Lup. “One thing you can taste.”

He took a sip of his bedside water. “Key lime gogurt.” He was here. This was now. He was not due and he was not huge. Sure, his pregnancy was just starting to get obvious at nearly-five-months-along, but he was not a big, wobbly flesh balloon with adult people inside. It was just his immediate family and no crowd of strangers and no plague masks.

Taako still felt compelled to explain his dream, all the same.

“No more war stories for you,” Kravitz decided. He still had his wings out, and around both twins, so he was still more or less in guardian mode.

“Don’t kill anyone who tells them, please?” said Taako. Damn. The two little bodies inside his own were having a party in there. He wasn’t sure, but maybe they could hear things, and were flipping out. He rubbed his bump and murmured, “This is not the time for callisthenics.”

“Aw, they just want a baby bump bump,” dismissed Lup, touching her bump to his.

It made  _ him _ feel better. “Okay. I’m done,” he announced. “Lulu, you go back to yours before he freaks out while Kravvy and I rock my little acrobats to sleep.”

“Keep it down, if you can, you noisy Norbert,” Lup teased on her way out.

Taako was already snuggling up to Kravitz. He was already warmed by his love and now he was just one big cuddle target. Warm, feathery wings, and squishy tum. His ‘dad bod’ was just as delicious as his sculpted self. Taako eased his husband down on their bed and climbed on top. Kissing and teasing as he went.

And just as he guided Kravitz’s fingers to his covert vagina, the man of the hour said, “Wait. Wait.”

“Too heavy?” asked Taako. “Am I pinching a pube?”

Krav retrieved his hand. “You’re absolutely certain this won’t hurt the babies?”

“This hasn’t bothered you for the last four months.”

Kravitz blushed. “I… Uhm. I can see… where they are, now.” He ran a very careful hand over Taako’s pregnant belly. As if afraid he could shatter it.

Oh gods. Of all the insanities… “Babe. They’re in their own little safety bubble, right now. Okay? Nothing gets in that shouldn’t be in there. Nothing goes out that belongs. You are most definitely  _ not _ going to poke them in their soft and tiny heads. Got it?”

“Oh my Queen, they have little heads?”

“What do you think is going on inside me? Pupation? Krav. Honey. Sweetheart. I love you so much, but you’re being a dunderhead right now. Take a deep breath, and make love to me like you want even more babies to happen. Which is, I should tell you now, actually impossible.”

Kravitz kept caressing him like he expected Taako to explode. “If I see the slightest twinge. If I even think that you’re in pain or in trouble, I’ll stop.”

“Deal.”

Kisses and groping started anew. Tantalising and teasing and occasional reminders that Taako wasn’t as fragile as Krav seemed to think he was. The sex was slow and lazy and just what Taako needed to scratch that special itch. And feel safe and secure because he had definite proof that he was loved and protected.


	10. Chapter 10

Month six came with an inability to get out of bed or out of a chair without some kind of leverage arrangement. He could get his legs up, but his torso lagged behind with the growing weight in there. He and Lup together had to have their mates catch them before they fell backwards into their place of rest.

And following their rise to their feet, there would be cuddles and groping. And anxious husband hands seeking out their own sensation of infant kicks.

Which would turn into dancing. Which would fade into smooches. And both twins could easily forget what they got up for in the first place. Because their pregnancies also included a pleasant haze of brain fog.

Taako didn’t mind, so much. All the hormones coursing through his system made him not mind. Sure, there were periodic episodes of irritation when he remembered what he forgot, of course, once he settled himself back into his chosen nest, but he had a loving husband and brother-in-law who could do his fetch quests for him.

Going out promised to be a pain in the ass. Taako and Lup were national celebrities to begin with, being the last of the surviving Birds. Now that they were both visibly pregnant, there was another stir. Every cleric in the area, every single being with medical expertise, wanted to examine them both. And if they were being brutally honest, they wanted to scrutinise every last cell of Taako’s in intricate detail.

It wasn’t every day that anyone came across a genuine pregnant intersex man in the middle of a divinely ordained gestation.

It was the hugest advancement in Faerun science since the invention of science. Even Lucas “I used to be dead but I got better” Miller would have wanted to strap Taako into some “perfectly harmless I swear” technomagical devices and probe the fuck out of him.

Taako was definitely not into that. Any time at all ever.

But he still wanted to go out and do stuff. See plays with his sister. Shop for ingredients. Have  _ fun. _ At least, have a little sibling time before his pregnancy weighed him down and the exhaustion of gestating swamped him in the undertow of pumping out growth hormones like a freaking mining engine.

According to Merle’s library of scary things that happened during Elven pregnancy, he and his sister only had a bare handful of months before he was sleeping it off again.

And, he had to face it, the nesting instincts were kicking in. Taako found himself with an intense desire to empty out the cuddle cote and replace every soft thing that was in there, re-stock the non-perishable food, and clean the ensuite bathroom that the entire cote connected to.

Taako knew that he only cleaned countertops when he was normal. So something hormonal in direct relation to his little twin parasites had to be up.

And since he was obsessed with  _ new _ things to put into the cote… he had to go shopping.

And since he absolutely abhorred the mobs that would swarm, he used a charm Barold had made to disguise himself as a human acolyte of the Mother’s Temple. Who was also as pregnant as he was, and had a very good reason for escorting Lup anywhere she went.

It worked. All he had to do was make certain they spoke Elven together and didn’t lapse into _Us._ And not fuss with his hair, or feel his head, because he felt naked without his trademark -and dead give-away- hat. Thus, he clung to Lup with both hands as they made it into the Fantasy Mall, already making plans for cushions, blankets, a nearly insane amount of small towelling items, baby baths, and so forth.

It was when they were browsing through baby clothes that Taako found out he had a new weakness.

Itty bitty.

Tiny.

Baby socks.

They were so  _ small… _

He could vividly imagine a foot that tiny. And a thousand little facts flooded his head. Facts like  _ twins are often born premature, _ or,  _ twins are often underweight and undersized at birth. _ And another fact ate his entire mind.

His babies were going to have feet that were  _ so much smaller… _

Tears flooded his eyes and his lower lip wobbled like a fresh jelly. A wave of sadness hit him like a tsunami, and before he knew it, he was openly blubbering about this teeny tiny pair of socks in the palm of his hand.

His world shrank to a miserable hell that contained his sorrowful self, and the tiniest socks in the world, that would still swim on his imagined babies’ feet. Tiny, premature feet. They’d have to shop in a place that catered to pregnant Gnomes because his babies were too small. They were going to be too small to live. He’d fucked this up, he’d fucked this up so bad. So very bad. 

This was going to go so badly wrong, and he was going to mess things up for Lup, and they were going to age out of being able to have babies at all and it was the end of the world all over again and please Istus, don’t let it go bad.

Lup was right in his ear. Purring softly. Holding him gently. Neither of them could use magic directly because pregnant Elves had haywire magic at best and overpowered magic at worst. She guided Taako off to an unoccupied courtyard, ditching the tiny socks on the way. Sat with him under a tree. Undid his braids and massaged his scalp. Combed her fingers through his hair, purring all the time. Gently rubbing his ears every now and again.

Words eventually made their way through Taako’s funk. Words in  _ Us. _ A soothing tune once sung by their mother. Once sung by their aunty and uncles.

The lyrics were not,  _ Oh shit sweet flips, my little nugget, _ or anything that he’d told Magnus or Merle back in the day. Lup did have a habit of making up her own words, but the tune remained the same.

The song and some of her made-up and raunchy lyrics did their work. Taako calmed down. The whole thing left him feeling as limp as overcooked pasta, and just about as ready to disintegrate. Turn into glue in the pot.

_ “Feeling a bit better for all of that?” _

Taako’s breaths shuddered as he took them.  _ “Not by much,” _ he confessed.

She bumped his bulge with her own. A baby bump bump.

He could feel his twins kicking in response. Dancing on his liver. On his bladder. Kicking his stomach around like a football. Bumping his middle around like they wanted out of there already. He ran his hand over his expanding, warping middle and said, “Patience. You got six months to go. Chill.”

“You going to take your own advice, there?” Lup teased.

Taako sighed. Leaned against his sister. Reached out a hand to feel her babies moving around. This was, after all, for her. She was the one who wanted to have Barold’s babies. And it was for Istus, who needed people to hold the Bulwark Staff after the last two Birds flew away to roost in the Astral Plane.

Maybe that was the trouble. He had every reason for others. None for himself. All he could focus on was how he could mess this up for everyone. How he could fail them. How he could fail the friends that he would see again in new bodies.

What did he want out of this?

Taako took a deep breath. Took a rare and solid look at himself, at why he’d agreed to do this so quickly. Why he hadn’t even looked at Lup before he’d said yes. What had he always wanted?

_ Family. _

Ever since his father left them, their family had been broken. Ever since the raid when they were twelve, he had wanted somewhere to belong. He had found a family in the Starblaster and their loss over the years had hurt him more than he wanted to admit.

_ Fuck. I actually want Ango as a reborn grandson. _

He’d said it out loud before this all started. He wanted them back. He wanted them all back. And for a change, the Gods had answered his prayers.

Taako put his hands on where his babies were kicking.  _ His babies. _ Nobody could steal them away. Nobody could lure them from him. They were most definitely his. Not adopted. Not taken in. Not added to the underside of his wings, so to speak. His. Made in love. Made with the man he loved. Protected with love.

Created with the souls of the crew he loved.

Bond after bond after bond. Knotted together and kicking the piss out of his kidneys.

“Mine,” he whispered aloud. “Mine for keepsies.”

Lup kissed his cheek. “I knew you’d get there in the end,” she said.

“Yeah, yeah, you’re the smart one. Rub it in.”

She put one of his hands on her belly. Where her own twins were kicking. And one of hers over his. “These are  _ ours,” _ she said. “All ours. Niblings and siblings alike. A new family.”

“The Taaco family,” he said.

“The Bluejeans family.”

“Seriously?”

“Doy. Like we were going to go with Hallwinter. Barold hated it even before we renamed him.”

“You could have stuck with Taaco…”

“You and I both know that’s a name they put into the records by mistake.”

“Well I’m sticking with it, babe. Besides, my man doesn’t have a surname, so we had to make our own. And enough people call me Taako Taaco anyways, so…”

Lup blew a raspberry at the thought. “Lazy. Couldn’t be bothered thinking up a name for yourself.”

“I did  _ that _ when I was one hundred. Taako. A name so nice I used it twice.”

Lup glared at him. “Say that any more and I’ll wave baby socks at you.”

Taako surrendered, and suggested cheesecake and tea as a peace offering. Which Lup accepted. They would be getting their husbands to buy the teeny tiny baby socks. And not show them to their pregnant and heavily emotional spouses.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for a character experiencing dysphoria in this chapter.

It was at the beginning of month seven that Taako covered up every mirror in his house. He knew he had boobs. He knew he had an ass. He could stand looking at Lup because that was  _ Lup. _ How could he not see his sister? But looking at his mirror image, and how increasingly feminine he was getting. How undeniably  _ un-him _ his figure was. That was getting jarring.

Uncomfortable.

He was starting to feel ugly.

Alien inside his own skin.

He wasn’t just getting fat, which he still got giggly about because fat meant that he was going to survive the winter. He was most definitely pregnant.

And worse, the pregnancy hormones flooding his increasingly alien-feeling body had cut off an essential part of his responses to Kravitz’s very excellent lovemaking.

Put indelicately, Taako couldn’t get it up any more.

Over the months, when he had been feeling randy, it had been more and more secret work to put his interest where Kravitz liked to look. More effort. More concentration. More prep time.

Now, the only thing hard about him was his belly.

Kravitz had spent a lot of time on foreplay, making Taako almost lose it completely with hyperstimulation, that night. Taako was in the middle of begging to be fucked when Kravitz just… stopped.

“You don’t have to fake it with me, love,” Kravitz has said.

“I’m not- what are you- I- I- I… I’m not faking, Krav. Baby, why would you--?”

Kravitz reached down and grasped Taako’s dick. “I know when you’re into something, Dove.”

But… he’d been pulling all his tricks. It should have worked.

Taako started crying. It all flooded out. How it had been more and more work to get an erection, how he was really into their lovemaking, baby, I swear on Istus, but it just wasn’t going there any more and he’d failed, he’d failed, and Kravitz was going to leave, and this was the end. His father had left when he was little and now he couldn’t keep a man and he was going to die in childbirth and their babies would be orphans and- and- and-

Kravitz stemmed the tide of Taako’s babble with his own lips. “It’s all right, love. There, now.” Kravitz scooped Taako up into his feather cloak and carried him down to the kitchen. “Walk me through how to make your special tea, darling. I think you need some.”

“The Chai?”

“That’s the stuff. With the cinnamon and the other things.”

Taako was seated on the countertop, huddled up in the cloak and its soft, soothing feathers. “Okay,” he warbled, “Ingredients. Black tea, brown sugar, cinnamon sticks, cardamom pods, black peppercorns, fresh ginger, whole milk, and water.”

Kravitz almost flew, getting the ingredients together. During which, Barold appeared with a teary-eyed Lup.

“Damnit, bro. Stop transmitting.”

“Would if I could, sis.”

Barry, who had been through making the tea before, began measuring and chopping the relevant ingredients.

Lup, also in Barry’s feather cloak, cuddled up with her brother. “You’re obsessed with failing at this. Stop it.”

Sigh. “Would if I could, Lulu.”

She bumped bellies with him, which made him smile. “That’s yours. These are mine. The gods want this, so they’re not going to take them away. Failure is not one of our options.”

Sniffle. “I suck as a parent.”

“Ango was a learning experience. As were those foundlings. You didn’t do too shabby though. Had it sorted out by the grand-babies, at least.”

“We spoiled them rotten and you know it,” he objected. “I hate feeling like this. I hate these…” he cupped his own breasts as if he expected them to burn him. “I hate being called ma’am. I hate that every fucking Cleric in Faerun wants to run off with me and just fucking help themselves. I hate that this is taking so long. I hate that it feels so weird. I hate that I know I have narrow hips and they’re gonna hurt coming out and I wish I could just have it over with, but  we got five more months of this crap, Lulu… I’m freaking out every day. ‘N’ I can’t even show Krav how much I love…” He dissolved into sobs again.

“Erectile dysfunction?” Lup whispered in his ear.

Taako could only nod. Krav was gonna leave, he was gonna leave because Taako was messed up with being pregnant and how many husbands left because sex wasn’t in the equation?

And there was a warm mug of Chai tea in his hands and a husband kissing his face. “Taako. Dove. My love. I’m not going anywhere. I’m here for you. Anything you need.  _ Anything.” _

Sniff. Sip. “How much did I say out loud?”

Krav smiled for him. “Enough to be embarrassing in retrospect, Dove. It’s all right.” His hands were warm. He was still in love. “You need to get used to talking it out, sweetheart.”

Their lips met. Kravitz was warm and sweet and way too nice to be hooked up with a pregnant loser like Taako. And yet, there he was. With a gold band on his finger. Together with him for well over a century.

Sworn to stay until Taako told him to leave.

The tea helped. Warm and comforting for all that it tasted like key lime gogurt to him. The calming aroma did most of the work. As did a snuggly husband making doe-eyes at him.

Halfway through the tea, Taako surrendered. “What?”

“Talk to me, Dove? Tell me what’s bothering you?”

“It’s nothing you can fix, bone daddy.”

“I still want to listen.”

So he talked. Until his tongue ached. Until the sun rose. About his growing self-hatred. About the one time when he and his sister were fifteen, when he had vowed to any God who would listen that he would take Lulu’s pain if it meant she could have a rest from it for just one day. How he’d wanted to share it. And how, after all of this tearful and heartfelt confession, Lulu had said, “No you don’t.” About how he totally understood what Lulu meant all those centuries ago, because he fucking  _ hated _ looking like a woman whilst being a dude.

A litany that took Taako and Kravitz into the cuddle cote because it was the one place that was isolated from the rest of the world.

Losing his boners had just been the last straw in a long list of things that had been bothering him since he’d started to show. He still couldn’t look at a pair of tiny socks without bursting into tears. And there was so much delicious food he could no longer eat because it stood a chance of harming his babies and he knew, without a doubt, that he was going to be the fuckup, because he had  _ always _ been the fuckup.

Kravitz’s kind and gentle hands tried to soothe his worries away. His magnificent wings couldn’t shelter Taako from his self-doubt. That lovely, smooth voice tried to sing his fears into quiescence. All three tactics together didn’t do very much at all.

Kravitz took a deep breath. “I’m going to go speak to my Queen. She can talk to the other Gods tangled up in this. Maybe… There has to be something I can help with, Dove. I’m going to find it and I’m going to do it. To the hilt. Whatever it is. I’ll try not to be gone for too long.”

Taako gave him a lingering farewell kiss and a loving squeeze to his joy department as a reminder that sex was still an option. “I’ll try sleeping it off. It’s nice and safe and cozy in here. And there’s gorp. I should be okay.”

Taako made sure he went to sleep lying on his right side. It was a circulation thing and another bag of suck from Being Pregnant Central.


	12. Chapter 12

Kravitz knelt before his Queen’s throne. Even though she wasn’t there when he began, she was there when he looked up again. “Lady… I come begging for help.”

“There’s no need to beg, son,” soothed the Raven Queen. “I might even know what you need help with.”

“It’s Taako,” said Kravitz. “He’s greatly disturbed by this… outcome… in his fate.”

“Hm. He held out longer than I had thought,” she said. “Istus was correct. Taako is far stronger than I had presumed. He knew that this was a consequence he would have to bear, but… that is no reason to let him suffer.” She indicated a box. “This is a gift from Pan. You must not open it in my realm. It will grow and flourish as the love between you is maintained. Its flowers are… potent. The aroma will soothe his fears and worries. One petal in his tea will calm his self-hatred. And this,” a different box, “is a gift from Istus. She says it will help Taako feel beautiful.”

The Gods had prepared for this. “There were four Gods involved in this, my Queen,” he said. “Would I be bold in assuming that there are four gifts?”

“Oghma will impart knowledge when it is needed,” said the Raven Queen. “Taako and Lup already have my gift. The souls finding new homes inside them.”

Realisation hit like a meteor. This was why he could no longer visit Magnus and Julia. Why he could no longer chat with any others of the deceased Birds. Why the now-labyrinthine log cabin on it’s not-so-little island was out of his reach.  _ They were no longer there. _

“My Queen,” he said, “my Lady… is this not a disruption of your own rules?”

“For a relic that carries the echoes of Jeffandrew? I would rewrite my own self, if I had to. We need to cement a soul bond  _ and _ a genetic tie. And… Kravitz? The twins are our last chance to do this, or the Bulwark Staff will ruin this world. Even Gods like us cannot destroy it, its thrall, or its magic. It must be safeguarded. We’ve worked hard to provide a way to do so. In your children’s hands, it will be safe.”

Kravitz felt as if the world was falling away from him. “Who are we re-birthing?” What could he expect from this? From the babies? “What will they be?”

“They will be… new. They will be loved. They will be yours.” The Raven Queen reached forward and caressed Kravitz’s face. “I can tell you no more, my son. But I promise you, when your love is born again, so too will you.”

Kravitz sighed. “I… don’t think I would have wanted to exist without him. Thank you, my Queen.”

Tea and cakes had manifested between them. Kravitz recognised some from Taako’s cookbooks.

“Now,” said Lady Death, “Tell me all about everything. You don’t linger to discuss things since your husband fell pregnant.”

Kravitz chuckled. “Well, I have a pregnant husband to worry about,” he began. His Lady didn’t hear much about the world of the living. It fascinated her. So he told her everything since the last time that he had had a gossip session with the Goddess who was the next best thing to a mother figure for him.

_ Lup had been there for it… _

But then, he was also growing worried about Taako. The instincts of his role almost compelled him to return to the nest and make certain his young and his mate were hale and hearty. A feeling he expressed at increasing intervals.

“Go,” bade his queen. “I shall come to visit as an avatar. Later. Will lunch be nice?”

“Lunch would be wonderful,” he sighed, and almost didn’t remember a polite farewell before fleeing for home via his portal. Gifts and all.

Taako was still asleep when he got back, and had evidently partaken of some of the cuddle cote’s gorp phials. The empties had been lined up neatly by the exit. Taako’s growing belly was peeking out underneath his flowy, designer top. He was going to hate having to size up. Complain, possibly for the first time in his life, that he was getting too fat. Kravitz put the gifts in a storage nook and spooned around Taako. Wings out, because Taako loved them. Loved feeling secure under their midnight shelter. He took deep breaths of Taako’s scent.

And dreamed.

Of hot springs, and sweat-slicked twins. And two tiny people born under the midsummer eclipse. New and different from either of their parents. Of Lup and Barold, each holding a small and wailing form in their arms.

Of Taako turning to him and easing a wailing child into Kravitz’s arms. “We did it,” he said. Exhausted. Tear-streaked. “Look what we made…”

There were Taako’s features there, mixed with his own. And new tweaks, made of his spiritual undead heritage, the influence of four gods. Skin so dark that it was almost black. Freckles across their cheeks that shone like flecks of gold. “They’re beautiful,” he said.

“Who’s beautiful?” said Taako.

Kravitz woke to find his husband awake.

“Should I be jealous?” he teased.

“Dreamed of our babies,” said Kravitz. “They were tiny, and perfect, and gorgeous, and you looked so proud of them. They had your gold freckles and my darker skin.”

Taako sighed, running some fingers over Kravitz’s feathers. “Still got five more months before we see them. Do Reapers get super spooky foresight? Reliable visions?”

“Not before today,” Kravitz shrugged. “Considering all these gifts from the gods, who knows? Maybe Istus gave me a little glimpse.”

Kravitz must have said a magic word, because Taako levered himself up into a sitting position. “Gifts? Plural? I thought all this--” he gestured at his rounded belly, “--was the gift. Now I got more?”

“Helpful gifts,” said Kravitz. “One from Pan, and one from Istus. This,” he spread his hand over Taako’s bulge. “Is my Queen’s gift. And she said Oghma would help us out later.”

“Good for Oghma,” said Taako. “What’ve I got? Gimmie. It’s not every day I get a baby shower from the gods.”

The plant was quickly explained, and came with easy instructions on how to propagate it. Taako was told the purpose of the gift, but Kravitz hadn’t been told what it was. Taako opened the lid and then burst into tearful laughter.

It was a pot of chocolate body paint. And a feather.

“This one’s for  _ you _ to use on  _ me _ , homie.”


	13. Chapter 13

There was a little pot plant in the room Taako shared with Kravitz. There was one in the kitchen with a lamp over it. There was one on the windowsill where the breathing house could carry its scent through the entire structure. Barry, who took more notice of these things, was the one most likely to water them all, and rotate which one was in the kitchen.

Taako didn’t think it odd that the flowers he needed to make the tea with were abundant and riotous. He just continued having a daily cuppa with honey and chilling out about life.

Which was just as well because he was eating for three, and increasingly weighed down my his gestation.

Eight months down. Four months to go.

“Everything aches,” he whined, sipping his tea. “And it’s getting uncomfortable. I can’t stand to stand, I can’t sit without a fuckton of cushions. The couch feels hard. The  _ couch, _ Lup. The one we picked out as the softest, comfiest couch in the world. And then we got eight of the fuckers.  _ That _ couch. Feels hard.”

They were in the middle of making eggs and kale, and about half of everything else just lying around in the fantasy fridge.

“I know, bro,” she baby-bump bumped him as they worked. “What you got, I got too. Barry said Istus told Bird Mom that three of those petals in some sorbolene should help with the super-sensitive skin. Sure your bone baby-daddy’s gonna  _ love _ rubbing you all over with that stuff.”

“True. But both our beloved hubbies are off after some lich somewhere and they can’t do that.” He tutted and sighed. “Thank the gods for fantasy bean bags…”

“Well, after we eat and nap in the sunshine, we have to do our daily waddle around the perimeter. Exercise being good for us and all.”

“I would much rather attempt to eat my own weight in fantasy Ben and Jerry’s.”

“Me, too, bro-bro. But this is a gotta-do-it thing. Or Cleric Kracbon will be on our asses about how essential it is, blah blah blah…”

The eggs and kale (and almost everything else on their limited menu) was done, so Taako dished out a democratic half for his sister. Stabbed his own with his fork. “If we could do controlled magic,” he said, “we could totally redecorate this place.”

“Don’t even think about spell-casting, Taako. Mm-mm.”

“I know, I know. Rampant creative energy, could hurt the babies. Could blow a hole in the world. Could hurt us. I  _ know. _ It’s just…”

“...never been this long without chucking a spell at something. Except for Saint Vingo’s.”

“Saint Vingo’s doesn’t count. That was enforced.”

Lup agreed, and scarfed down a significant portion of her meal. “Gods, I miss hot sauce.”

“I miss fish.”

“I miss custards.”

“I miss anal.”

“I just miss  _ sex _ .”

“I miss rare steak.”

They hugged. Soothed each other. “Four months to go. We can stick this out for four more months.”

Taako picked up the kitchen’s current pot plant and deeply inhaled its perfume. “I hate all of our cushions.”

“I hate all of our curtains.”

They ended up completely cleaning out the cuddle cote and refilling it with fresh, clean cushions, blankets, and decorative elements. And cleaning the attached bathroom before crawling back into the cote for a mutual nap session.

Intermittent naps, because comfort was an elusive beast.

“Lulu…”

“Yah, Koko?”

“I miss being able to hold you.”

“These kids are tearing us apart,” she joked.

Taako was the first to roll himself to the cote door. “At least we can still have ice cream and watch Fantasy Kitchen Disasters.”

“Haven’t we watched that through yet? I wanna see some Fantasy Can’t Cook Won’t Cook.”

“How about Fantasy Two Fat Ladies?”

“Donesold.”

Bean bags, sunbeams, ice cream and fantasy trash television won the day. And they did eventually take their daily waddle once the twilight took their sunbeam away.


	14. Chapter 14

Nine months. Humans had it lucky. Elves had three more months of peeing for two, being uncomfortable everywhere, cravings, internal pummeling from their babies, and assorted biological weirdness.

“Pickled eggs,” whined Taako.

“Turkish delight,” whimpered Lup.

Their husbands rushed to comply, but they were too late, even with portals.

“Ugh. Nausea…” Both twins grasped for their buckets and burped dangerously.

Kravitz reached for the magic pot plant. Wafted the scent into their faces. Barry tied back their hair. Then summoned some icy water for them. Kravitz used a portal to grab the salt.

Each twin slumped back into their respective fantasy bean bags, puffing and huffing.

“Three more months,” panted Lup.

“Fuck this,” said Taako.

“We can stick it out for three… more…” she started weeping. “I can’t make it, I can’t make it… I want this over wi-hi-hiiith…”

“Tea?” said Kravitz.

“Tea,” said Barry.

More portals, and a little bit of prestidigitation from Barry to warm up the cups. Synchronised sipping followed, and the cold sweats eased off.

Taako dipped into Lup’s turkish delight and she dipped into his pickled eggs.

“Fuck this,” repeated Taako.

“Three more months,” soothed Kravitz. Easing his fingers over Taako’s brow and through his hair. “That’s an eyeblink for Elves. Right?”

Taako glared at him. “Babe. Sweetheart. Bone Daddy… I love you, but time passes for Elves the same way it does for everyone. One agonising day at a fuckin’ time.” This time, he nibbled on a pickled egg. Sipped some of the tea. “This is just as horrible as it would be for anyone else. Trust me on this.” Egg and tea alike got quickly put aside for some more dangerous burping.

“Fuck,” said Lup, “this. I need to pee. Help me up, Barold.”

He could have easily made himself the muscle suitable for lifting essentially three people into an upright stance, but Lup enjoyed seeing him strain and he knew it.

Taako, meanwhile, loved that his man was strong enough for any challenge, and had a smile for his easier ascent.

Both husbands started automatically rubbing their pregnant spouses’ backs on the way to the nearest bathroom. And both shared simultaneous almost-telepathic Looks.

“Three more months,” murmured Kravitz.

“Three more months,” sighed Barry.

At least it was spring, and neither twin had cause to complain about the cold any more. Now they were prone to whine about any temperature a single degree above their comfort zone. And about waddling for exercise when all they wanted to do was sleep for the remaining three months and, perhaps, through the birth.

Back rubs and flowers could only do so much. Same with the feel-good kit that Istus sent. Same with anything they could concoct based on the idiot-proof cookbooks,  _ Don’t Fuck This Up _ and  _ Comfort Food for the Incompetent Chef _ . Kravitz had tried to follow some of the meticulous instructions in  _ Sizzlin’ it Up! _ by Taako, but the results were… less than telegenic. Taako called him ‘sweet’ and ate it with a forced smile. Which was Taako code for the small fact that Kravitz had fucked up somewhere in the process. Taako swore it was ‘fine’. More code for the fact that he’d missed something small, but important. Or fucked up a cooking time by a minute or less. Or misread one of the substitutions. Or, because of the gestation, Kravitz had done something to protect the babies that made the results less palatable than they should have been.

And, because Taako really was touched by Kravitz’s efforts, the Elf would never say a word about how he’d fucked up. So bad.

Maybe after the babies were eating for themselves, Kravitz could ask for expert cooking lessons. That would be the best way to do it. Get the actual tips on the sly. And remember to not take “let me do it” for an answer.

Angus had learned by being enthusiastic and fawning. Maybe Kravitz could employ the enthusiasm. Or maybe he could learn it sooner.

“Next time you want eggs and kale?” he said to his retching beloved. “Show me how to cook it right. You’re having a lot of difficulty getting up and down. I’m more… able bodied.”

Taako moaned, and not in a pleased way. “You wanna learn how you screwed up, that one time… Don’cha?”

Kravitz continued with the shoulder massage. “I want to do good things for you. That includes making food that you just don’t have the time or energy for.”

“You are one sneaky son of a bitch,” said Taako, but he was smiling. “I like that.”

Since he was done with pissing, Kravitz helped him back to the fantasy bean bags and the nests the twins had made for themselves. Neither Lup nor Taako were sleeping through the night, any more. What with hot flashes, cold sweats, intermittent cravings, spates of nausea, and the interminable need to pee on the alternate hour, napping throughout portions of the day was the new way of life.

But not for very much longer than an hour. Two, tops.

Kravitz insisted on keeping the same schedule as his husband. Just in case something fucked up and Taako needed him. Barry joked that it would be practice for when the babies were born, and Kravitz guessed that his joke was right on the money.

In three more months, close to midsummer when they were conceived, he would be going through the exact same sleep cycle. Only with less running to fetch pickles or turkish delight, and more diaper changes and burping.


	15. Chapter 15

Ten months, and Taako was feeling like an unexploded bomb. No more did Clerics rush to examine him or get in his face. Now, on the rare occasions when he did go out, the crowds parted like he was a leper. Nobody wanted to be near a very pregnant Elf, lest he suddenly go into labor and the nearest soul suddenly had to handle it.

He was huge. He knew it. Lup was just as huge. No amount of covering mirrors could conceal the fact. He had a big, round belly that moved whenever his babies did. As did she. And there were two months of this yet to go.

Krav and Barold were hovering. A lot. They spent every waking minute at a pregnant Elf’s elbow. In the peripheral vision. And spent every waking moment being worried. Anxious. Concerned.

Everyone could tell that it was almost baby time.

Two more months.

Eight weeks.

Fifty-six days.

All of that spent lumbering around. Out of breath. Constipated. Tired every minute. Needing to pee all the fucking time. Adding heaps of fibre to his diet until everything tasted like flavoured cardboard because  _ something _ had to shift his rock-hard poops, and he wasn’t allowed to use any of the normal stuff because it might hurt the babies.

He only had two more months to tough out, now.

Tough was definitely the word.

Walking was tough. Going about his daily business was tough. Cooking - an occupation he adored - had become a chore. He needed ten thousand pillows whenever he sat down.

That, and his hyper-anxious expectant husband had gone full-on murder bird mode. Trailing after Taako like a little duckling, if a little duckling could be eight feet tall with an impressive pitch-black wingspan and a murderous glare for anyone who veered too close. And that was only when he wasn’t fussing over Taako and attempting to wait on him hand and foot.

“Two more months, love,” Taako said. Not that it made much impact. A craving hit like a truck and he dipped into the little bag that could hold one each of his pregnancy craving treats, and then summon the next one once that treat was gone. A gift from Ren, who had spent months trying to find her old one. A gift for which Taako would do anything to pay her back for.

Barold, on the other hand, had literally gone to the ends of the earth to secure one for Lup. Not that Taako wasn’t unwilling to share, but Barry insisted that there could plausibly be an occasion when one twin wanted to do their own thing.

Lup had shared a Look with Taako at the time, which said,  _ Like fuck we would. _ But presenting the gift to Lup had made Barry preen for a solid fortnight, and the dude had enough insecurities about his prowess with Krav around. They all took mercy on him and let him boast.

Barry was less of a murder bird, but still flared his wings at people who got too close to his beloved Lup. And he would flinch at any puff or moan that Lup came out with. Which was happening a lot more now.

Taako was regretting insisting on this particular excursion. His need for fresh ginger was seeming less and less important with each laborious step. And that was battling with his need to taste something different amongst the limits of his own gestation. He was starting to despise the cravings for something new. Something different that he could actually have without hurting the babies.

_ Five seconds after these little fuckfruit stop breastfeeding, Taako is going all out, _ he vowed. At least he could have a more varied diet after the birth. For limited definitions of ‘more varied’. Lup had already catalogued the things they would not be allowed to eat  _ after _ their babies were born. It was still a narrow fuckin’ list of alleged cuisine.

He was going to be missing flavour for quite some time. And some of his favourite vegetables.

But fuck  _ him _ if he was going to go without a steady supply of chocolate. That was Taako’s last straw. He could live without coffee. He could live without wine. He could even go without garlic. He could live without peanuts, cabbages, onions, and even hams. But fuck  _ the entire world _ if he had to deal with any portion of his life without chocolate in it.

Krav snarled at a shopkeeper.

“Dear,” he said. “Let me pay the man his money.”

“Didn’t wash his hands,” growled Kravitz.

Taako offered his non-alcohol hand sanitiser. “Trust me. This is easier.” And shifted his weight because his swollen feet were  _ hurting. _

POP!

Taako grunted involuntarily as something in his skeletal structure shifted, and he had to quickly re-adjust his stance or go down like a sack of spuds.

Krav caught him and helped, of course, but his current limits to correlation made him snarl worse at the shopkeep, who hid behind their counter and whimpered. “Do you need Kracbon?” Kravitz asked. “Is it the babies? Is it time? Did you break something? Are you hurt?”

“One at a time, bone daddy,” Taako panted. But then, he was panting at everything. “I swear to Istus my  _ hips _ just shifted position.”

“Are you hurt?”

“It’s… uncomfortable,” he allowed. Everything was uncomfortable. And a fresh sense of urgency made itself known. “I need the nearest outhouse.”

“Baby time?” said the obsessed love of his life.

“Not yet, babe. Just… get me to the outhouse… I gotta go…”

He almost didn’t make it. And when he did get there - barely in time - he peed like a friggin fire hose and took the biggest, longest dump he’d ever enjoyed in fuckin’  _ months. _

Oh, what a relief.

He was feeling a hell of a lot happier about his place in the universe as he waddled back out again. Poor Krav looked like he had been fretting himself into moulting, but instantly recovered when he saw Taako’s smile. Of course he did. Taako was a gift to the universe.

“I’m okay, sweet thing,” he cooed as Krav took Taako up in his arms, and under his wings. “Let’s go pay for that fucking dragon fruit before this happens again.”


	16. Chapter 16

Eleven months. Summer heat cruelly punished the twins, and about all they could stand to ingest was ice cream and iced tea. Sunbeams were no longer their favourite camping spot, but now they preferred to rest in a shaded area with a cool cross-breeze. They were forbidden from soaking in the swimming hole on account of microflora and microfauna that -join the chorus- could harm their babies.

“I will be glad,” panted Lup, “When they’re out. And capable of… growing their own immunity.”

“A-fucking-men,” said Taako, also panting. He held up one hand for a cool lemonade as provided by his husband. Who was currently his more normal self, and not an eight foot tall murder bird. Though if Kracbon set a hair wrong, that could change in an instant.

This therefore made the family cleric more than a little nervous as he took pulses and listened to heartbeats and pressed at pregnant swellings and felt the babies’ movements. If a twin grunted or expressed some other nonverbal expulsion of displeasure, then there would be an ominous snarl from the relevant husband, followed by looming and ominous wings.

Which meant that their now-weekly check-ups were a cautious affair with slow movements and singsong dictation of everything he was doing. And over-use of the word ‘just’.

“I’m just going to use this listening tool to hear the babies,” singsonged Kracbon. “Once I’ve found a heartbeat, you can listen too. Won’t that be nice?”

Taako involuntarily huffed. His babies were having an activity period. Knowing Kravitz as he did, he quickly added, “Babies are kicking. I’m fine.”

The incipient looming growl settled into hovering and a subtle rumble like a burning fuse. Kravitz perched on a nearby couch like a vulture overlooking something small, frail, and wobbling.

Taako reached out to his beloved. Holding his hand. “They’re just belting five colours of shit out of my liver. Promise I’m okay.”

Lup had to giggle at that. Both of their undead hubbies were part-time murder birds when anyone else was around. They could sense that birthing was imminent and were compelled to guard the nest. So to speak. And according to Bird Mom? Their instincts couldn’t be toned down any further without revoking their Reaper powers and trapping them in the Astral plane.

“Those are some good, strong hearts, Taako,” Kracbon announced. He kept the pinard horn in place and gestured Kravitz down from his perch. “You want to hear them?”

Kravitz put his ear to the horn and reverted, just a little towards his normal humanman form. He got that kind of shock and awe expression that expectant fathers got when they had definitive proof that there was a real baby (or two) in there. Barry got it when he felt her twins kicking for the first time. Kravitz had it now.

And Kracbon had a spare pinard horn because no force in the twelve planes was going to get that one off of her boss man right now.

Any minute now…

“That’s some tempo,” said Kravitz, and the tears began to fall.

Waterworks. Every single time.

After her own twins were pronounced to have strong, healthy heartbeats, Lup insisted, “Babe, when you listen, look me in the eye? I wanna treasure the look on your squishy little face.”

And Barry obliged. Lup grinned like a true bastard as she watched him progress through the stages.

One:  _ What am I listening for? _

Two:  _ Oh, there it is. _

Three:  _ Holy shit, there they are! _

Four:  _ Oh my gods, there they are! _

Five: Freaking out.

Six: Waterworks.

And then one of her little brats kicked right where Barold was listening. “Little dickens just socked me in the ear,” he complained. “We got a fighter.”

“They’ll be who they’re meant to be, babe,” said Lup. “When they’re meant to be that. Don’t fight Istus.”

And now Barry was magnetically attached to the horn, socks to the ear or no socks to the ear. He looked so fucking proud of himself that it was worth getting pressed and fondled and have a fucking  _ tube _ crushed into her belly.

“Never doing this again,” vowed Taako.

“A-fucking-men,” said Lup.


	17. Chapter 17

Twelve months. Almost time.

Kravitz should have known he was going to miss the midsummer eclipse when he woke up to Taako’s moans of discomfort. His wings unfurled without his will to stop them. There was nothing his murder bird mode could do to prevent Taako’s pain.

The wave that washed over his large belly said it all.

Baby time.

Baby time  _ now. _

And, like all expectant fathers since the dawn of time, he dealt with this miracle of nature in the time honoured way:

By running around in a screaming, blind panic.

Instead of rationally dealing with anything according to plan, he fled to the Astral Plane to seek succour from his Goddess. Who was startled to see him there at all.

“Return to your love,” she ordered. “You are needed there. Now!”

Oh. Right. Yes. But… “What do I do, my Queen?”

She gave him the eye roll that all women used when dealing with helpless men. “Call your cleric. Then go boil some water.”

Right. Of course. Yes. That was the smart thing to do.

Kravitz ran back to the Material Plane and apologised in a rapid babble to Taako, who was not pleased at all about his current state of affairs. And finished off with, “IgottagotakeaportaltoKracbonI’llberightbackIpromise,” and then tore a portal through the air.

Kracbon was asleep in bed, but not for long. Kravitz landed with Barry on the same bed and almost scared the shit out of the poor, beleaguered cleric.

Both men hauled him out of his sheets and babbled over the top of each other and morphed in and out of being gigantic murder birds because that was where their minds were at the moment.

It was  _ baby time! _

Their respective spouses where hurting and neither of them could fight it and there were babies coming  _ right now _ and this stupid, stupid cleric couldn’t even string three words together.

But Kracbon had prepared for this and some of the acolytes of his order who were lighter sleepers popped up to attempt to calm each of the Reapers down enough so they could at least speak coherently.

Another was ready with a Potion of Instant Wakefulness, better known as a heart-stopping blend of espresso, guarana, taurine, and blistermint. And it was very telling that such potions were administered in tiny, tiny phials.

Kracbon rubbed the grit out of his eyes, took one look at the panicking husbands, and said the words, “Baby time.”

Finally! Kravitz wanted to rain blessings down on the very gods themselves because someone else got it.  _ At. Last! _

And then the man had to go pee whilst the acolytes readied go bags and filled the Reapers’ arms with Receiving Packs and both Reapers jiggled in anxious anticipation. It took far too long for the entire sortie to be ready. One cleric. Three acolytes. Go bags. Receiving packs. Reapers and a prayer to the Mother Goddess.

Kravitz was certain that the babies would already be born by the time he tore a portal back to a safe space near Taako’s location. But they weren’t. The twins were puffing and panting and pausing on their way to the cuddle cote. A place where they’d instinctively feel the safest when giving birth. A place that, thank the gods, was big enough for the twins, their husbands, and a host of at least ten junior McDonalds, food, beverages, and associated favourite toys or pets without it being the least bit crowded.

It was a healthy-sized cote.

Kravitz almost dropped Kracbon in favour of rushing to support Taako’s elbow. Just as Barry almost teleported to the side of his wife. The pregnant Elves would have to crawl in, single file. This would be the worst time to take them through Reaper portals.

Lup claimed seniority and Taako was too stricken with a contraction to have any breath to argue.

Kravitz rubbed his husband’s back and tried to guide Taako’s breathing. And the instant Lup was far enough inside, Kravitz assisted Taako in his crawling inside. Providing leverage where necessary.

When there was enough room behind the twins, Kravitz and Barry almost stuffed Kracbon into the access tube to the cote.

There was a slightly muffled, “Buy a fella a drink first, darling,” from Taako. But said quickly lest the goof get interrupted by another contraction.

Kravitz barged inside next, scrabbling up the tube next to Barry. Both hyper-anxious about their mates. About the new lives about to enter their own.

The twins were holding each other when Kravitz finally laid eyes on Taako again. Forehead to forehead and synchronising their breathing. His right hand interlocked with her left.

They were born holding hands. And now it looked like they would give birth holding hands, too.

Kravitz got himself at the right place behind Taako’s back and made himself rumble a growl. The vibration would help soothe Taako’s straining muscles. Taako leaned into him and sighed.

Barry was closer to Luume levels of instinctive response. The volume of the cote and Lup’s own needs worked together to keep Barry from going full-on murder bird.  _ His _ growl was voluminous and steady.

Kravitz was able to speak. “How soon?”

“This is just stage one,” soothed Kracbon. “There’s hours, yet.”

“Oof,” muttered Taako.


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the short chapter, folks.

Their firstborns came together. Right as the midsummer eclipse started. He could feel his grippers being squished flat by the passage of a head that felt like a bowling ball. Taako was grateful for Kravitz holding him up, because hachi machi, that was a peculiar blend of sensations. Especially his hips popping for the umpty-billionth time.

As the eclipse came to its peak, there were united squalls of complaint, and possibly the tiniest being introduced to his arms. Purple, underneath the blood and the gunk. Almost elven ears. And apparently a boy. As this new person complained, and an acolyte rubbed the gunk off of them, Taako could see their hue change from purple to a deep, dark brown. Almost completely black.

And the tiniest golden freckles. How could any being have freckles that small? It was impossible.

“Welcome, Eba,” Taako cooed as this too-small new life latched on to his nipple like a lamprey. Only then did an acolyte wrap them up in a pre-warmed towel.

And it was somewhere in the noise and confusion that his second seemingly-son came into the world. Just as the eclipse was ending. Good thing that people had two nipples. Taako had to let go of Lup to hold his other apparent son. Not that either of them minded, because they both had their hands full. “Welcome,” Taako sighed, “Nino.”

Kravitz helped Taako lay down as the acolytes saw to the afterbirth and the mess. He laid down with his husband and soaked in the details. Skin almost as black as midnight. Flecked with tiny golden stars of freckles. Elf-like ears, but longer and floppier than Taako’s. And a fine, delicate halo of hair that was also shot with gold. It would, in time, dry out to resemble a chick’s down, but for now, it was all slicked down with birth goo. They were holding hands in the middle of Taako’s chest. Eba’s on top of Nino’s. Impossibly small fingers flexing.

Across the way, Barry was cooing over two very similar little bundles. Both darker than their parents. Both small heads shot with filaments of gold.

Kravitz didn’t want to leave Taako’s side to see if there were any differences between these new sets of twins. And Taako wasn’t inclined to move at all.

Good plan, actually.


	19. Chapter 19

There was a big, black bird perched on each side of the crib. The birds moved in unison, watching the infant twins with one eye at a time. They made no further move towards or against the newborns. Which meant that these were no ordinary birds.

“Checking on the grandkids, Bird Mom?” teased Lup.

“They are magnificent,” said one of the birds in the Raven Queen’s voice. “And I have told you numerous times not to call me Bird Mom.”

“Not sorry,” cheered Lup, though she cheered at a soft murmur because the babies were asleep. “Didn’t have a mom for most of my life, so… When you called me ‘daughter’, you made it official. You’re my mom. End of.”

“I prefer a little decorum, child.”

“Pfft. Decorum and an empty sack is worth the sack. And with me? It’s either ‘Bird Mom’ or ‘babe’. Nicknames are how Koko and I show affection. Ask Barold.”

The ravens, which were taking turns speaking, glared at Lup as she checked the babies. Hers were only slightly paler than Taako’s, their skins containing a nebulaic swirl of purples and greens in the right light. Ali and Tae were still sound asleep. Dreaming their baby dreams. And still breathing.

“Do you two have a nickname for Istus?”

Lup grinned as she checked on Taako’s. Eba and Nino were still breathing, too. “Knit Mom. Its her fault for naming him ‘son’. She should know. You adopt one of us, you get both of us. Package deal.”

“From now until the end,” sighed a raven. And then changed the topic abruptly. “Oghma has left his gift for you. It’s going to be a bestseller. He keeps insisting. He also insists on ten percent of the gross in offerings.”

Lup giggled. “Thank Oghma, then, but remind him that some of us can use Fabricate to make free copies.”

“We all tried. He didn’t listen.”

Taako’s magical maternity flower was a good nursery plant to help the babies sleep for as long as they needed to. Which meant a greater opportunity of rest for those who had birthed them. Lup sensed that propagating that plant was going to be a boon to the market, too.

She gave the avatars a scritch on the backs of their necks and made her tip-toe way to the kitchen. Where Taako was already cooking for the day.

All the luxuries they couldn’t eat when they were pregnant and then some. Though caffeine was still off their menu, there were a great many other things that were joyfully back on.

He looked up as she entered.

“They’re still breathing, and Bird Mom is watching over them.”

Taako snorted and smirked as he stirred his latest creation. Something luxuriously creamy that contained only partially-cooked eggs and -of course- garlic. His kids were going to grow up with permanent halitosis if he didn’t watch out. But she did have to admit it smelled fucking delicious.

“We must be the only family in Faerun who’s  _ reassured _ to find a scavenger bird on the cradle.” He said. “So who left us the gift?”

It was a large rectangle wrapped in a paper patterned with Oghma’s symbol.

“This must be the gift Bird Mom mentioned. From Book Dad. He wants royalties from the sales.”   
Taako snorted. “He knows I can just cast Fabricate with the raw materials necessary, why would--?” he sputtered to a halt. Finally shrugging.

“Maybe our boys are going to be prolific horndogs. I dunno.” Lup shrugged, and started frying up one of Barry’s favourites. He had been taking the night shift pants changing. And the burping. And the lullabye-ing with Kravitz. She and Taako got all the breastfeeding and purring cuddles. Noting every detail of their babies’ distinguishing features.

“I should certainly hope I teach mine good manners at least,” sniffed Taako.

“So would I,” said Lup. “Meh. We’ll find out when we find out. Shove over, I need to stop you using too much garlic.”

“We are  _ not,” _ said Taako, “having that fight again. We always end up yelling and that’ll wake the babies.”

“Can’t wake the babies,” Lup settled down to her fry-up. “That’s downright sinful.”

“So I’ll just have to stop you using too much hot sauce,” Taako singsonged.

Lup glared at him. They were going to have to invent a new way of sibling conflict. But right now, it was scowls and vicious whispers.

At least until one of their new infants set up a cry.

Taako sighed, “That’s mine. Yours’ll follow soon enough. Half time?”

“Half time,” agreed Lup. They set their dishes to bide and went into the nursery where the ravens had vanished, only to be replaced by butterflies.

Beautiful, rainbow butterflies with a pattern on their wings that bedazzled the eye.

Lup nodded to them. “Istus,” she said.

Taako picked up the loudest complainer. Nino. “There, now. Food soon. Gotta get’cha clean before we get our eats on.”

Lup was ready for Eba. In a few, short minutes, her own pair would be waking up. A cascade effect. One baby cried because he was hungry, and three other babies cried because they were woken by the sound of one baby crying. Which meant tag teams on the changing table and some small amount of juggling when they settled down for the feeding.

At least they could use magic, now. Not with any weird flare-ups that gestation could have caused. And Mage hand came in useful with -er- access. And back-up support.

Taako had a little sniffle every time he saw his twins holding hands. And a slightly bigger one when he spotted Lup’s doing the same. According to Kracbon and the acolytes, Ali and Tae were not born holding hands. Neither were Eba and Nino. But holding hands was something they were naturally inclined to do.

Istus said that they would always have each other. From birth to death. Which could be reassuring if Lup didn’t know first-hand about the perils a child could encounter. Then again, there were four gods keeping these kids under their eyes. They wouldn’t pass on until there was at least one more generation of Staffbearers in their score.

Not that she’d accuse the gods of being that self-interested. They had a need, true, but they would not harm their chosen ones on an emotional level.

That was years ahead of now. Right now, her babies were waking up, and Taako needed to help with  _ their _ cleaning and subsequent feeding. A juggling act indeed. With their husbands out after some necromancers, Lup and Taako both were using Mage Hand left and right. No pun intended.

With their husbands there, there was at least one extra person around to hold a spare baby or two. And sufficient confusion that often lead to Lup feeding one of Taako’s and vice versa. Not that either of them minded. It all counted as forging family bonds. Making the family they had craved since they were young.

Not getting what they once had back. Creating something new. The only way to move forward.

Lup brushed her fingers on the tiny hands flexing on her chest. “You don’t have a thought in your fluffy little heads, yet,” she cooed. “You’re  _ all _ instinct. And I’d die for you if I had to.”

“I’d prefer you didn’t,” cooed Taako. “No way I can breastfeed four of these little fucks.”

“It’s a deal,” she singsonged. “We don’t kill each other until these four can feed themselves.”

“Done and sold, sis.”


	20. Chapter 20

Oghma’s book had proved useful with teething, first foods, and milestones. And right now, all four of them were working out locomotion. The floors were bare of carpeting because of dribble and unexpected rusks. These kids could sit up on their own. Roll by kicking their legs. And drool on everything about a foot off the floor or lower.

“Hachi Machi. Tae. No-no. Sweetie. No. Not num-num.” Taako detached Tae from the table leg he was chewing on and substituted a lembas rusk. “This num-num. Good num-num.”

Tae took it, tasted it, and then flung it across the room with an indignant, “Ba!”

Taako switched to _Us._ _“Tell me that isn’t Merle in there, I dare you.”_

Lup, busy in the kitchen with more rusk recipes, said,  _ “They’ll learn Us from us…” _

Taako pondered this. The language that was once so private turning into a new tongue for a new species. At once both horrifying and exhilarating at the same time.  _ “Lulu… Us could live forever.” _

She almost corrected him. He could see it. Then she realised his meaning.  _ “Holy shit. Koko… You’re right.” _

_ “Thank you sister-dear.” _

_ “I need to mark this occasion on the calendar.” _

Taako glared at her. This time, he was more sarcastic.  _ “Thank you, sister-dear.” _ He let Tae gnaw on his finger, wincing. He could heal. His furniture could not.

“Uhn-na-na-na-na,” Tae managed around Taako’s knuckles.

“You got some new teeth, don’t you, my nibling?” Taako cooed. “It’s time for the chamomile ice cubes, I think.”

Tae made a farty noise. Not quite a raspberry.

“Such witty repartee,” said Lup. “You can tell  _ my _ kids are the true geniuses.”

“Mine are smarter,” Taako argued, swanning over to the fantasy freezer for the chamomile ice cubes. Once wrapped up in a small towel, Tae was content to grind his jaws on them rather than anything Taako would rather keep. “They know how to be well-behaved.”

Lup, without looking, singsonged, “Nino’s chewing on your umbra-staff…”

“Hachi machi!” Taako placed Tae down and went scurrying for Nino. “No-no, baby. No-no.”

Lup laughed. “Better dish ‘em out for everyone, brother-dear. It’s spreading.”

“Uh-uh, Eba… No-no, Ali…” Now he was overloaded with tiny, squirming kids. One of whom was trying to chew his Mage Hands.

Lup took mercy on him and packed up some little parcels of frozen chamomile inside some extra flannels. Doled them out to each angry infant, and scooped up Eba onto her hip. Jiggling and tutting at him. _“That’s the good cold, yes?”_ she cooed in _Us._ _“Makes the hurt go away…”_

Well. That was that decision.  _ Us _ was going to be the new Staffbearer tongue.

And, sooner or later, they would get used to these kids’ monkey-shines. How had their mother done it? Isolated from most of her family and facing an entire village’s worth of superstition against their witch-eyes.

_ Keeping them safe isn’t easy, _ she had said. Years and years ago, now. More than three centuries. Four, if you counted the one where they were traversing realities in the flight from the Hunger. “What are we doing? We’re technically four hundred years old and having babies…”

“Too late to stop it, bro-bro.” She put the babies she had down in their play area on the floor. “We’ve got them, and we love them, and that’s the important part.”

Tae was grizzling as he chewed, and the other three were inclined to agree. Taako put him down on the nearest bean bag with his sibling and cousins.

“Let me help you make some of those rusk variants,” he offered. “One of ‘em has to be something they won’t chuck across the room.”

“Good luck with that,” said Lup. “They’ve all learned how to throw. Chucking things is a means of expression.”

On the carpet where all of them were squirming about and babbling to each other, Nino picked up a cloth poppet and bashed it around on the floor before chucking it at Ali. Who set down his ice and started chewing on a leg.

Taako drizzled a little honey into the dough. Just enough to make it sweeter than any of the other mixtures.

“Taako…” Lup chided.

“Honey isn’t  _ that _ bad,” he said. “Especially not less than a teaspoon for a whole batch. And it ain’t that hard to brush their little teeth. We have to do it anyway.”

Lup grumbled to herself. “Fine. But honey doesn’t solve all our picky eater problems.”

“Well, for that, there’s always cheese sauce and bacon bits.”

Lup glared at him. “We’re still teaching these brats to appreciate good food.”

“Oh, so you agree that your kids are brats?”

“Only if  _ you _ agree that  _ yours _ are brats.”

The famous twins had a new argument. Which meant that they were having the time of their lives.


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this came out so late, folks. It's been a crowded day.

“Aaaw,” cooed Barry. He’d found their families. There was a feast of finger foods under preservation covers on the counters… and a cuddle pile in a sunbeam.

Six bodies, four significantly smaller than the other two. Eba, Nino, Ali, and Tae were sprawled over Lup and Taako. All four of them slumbering peacefully.

“They’re all so adorable when they’re sleeping,” whispered Kravitz. He checked the smaller foreheads. Their fevers had broken. Then he checked their parents.

_ Their _ fevers were just beginning.

Because of course young children wanted comfort from their parents when they were sick. So of course they got extra huggy and needed extra consolation. And when a parental figure is nursing, nurturing, and noodling with a sick kid all day… the sickness is doomed to spread.

Kravitz knew for a fact that Taako was an absolute baby about being mildly sick. He would carry out the  _ I’m Dying _ act until he got over it or he got worse. When Taako put on a brave face, it was time to fret.

Kravitz scooped up Eba and Nino in his arms. An awkward weight to juggle, because nothing is a badly-balanced dead weight worse than floppy, sleepy, not-so-healthy five-year-olds.

“...wanna st’y wi’f Apa, Daddy,” whined Nino.

Eba, more determined to remain asleep, mumbled a generic complaint noise that didn’t make it all the way to being words, yet.

“Come on, loves,” Kravitz whispered. “Let Apa sleep. He’s had a long day.” He hummed a bar or two of Taako’s favourite lullabye on his way to the kids’ bed. There was no thought of separating the younger twins from their siblings. And they had, all four of them, shared a bed since they were newborns. Therefore, their sleeping accomodations were more like a nest than anything a humanman slept in.

His Lady Queen help him. Taako’s nomenclature was rubbing off on him!

Human-type beds would likely happen later. When the kids wanted their own spaces.

Barry, burdened by his own twins, was explaining multi-planar mathematics to his kids. A topic which made even the most brilliant of minds heavy-eyed. It took no time at all to get four little bodies tucked in together in their communal nest-nook. Fast asleep.

Kravitz crept back out and stole into the kitchen like a thief. He had at least mastered a few of the basics of Taako-care. And could probably trust Barry to do the chopping and measuring without too much worry. Four centuries and change, and he was still too much of a nerd to focus on just one thing. The solution was amazingly simple and something none of the Starblaster crew had thought of - give him three things to do at once. In this case, preparing the ingredients. Peeling the garlic, grating the ginger, and chopping the chicken. That generally kept his mind off of new and sanity-endangering levels of mathematics.

Barry had once come up with the Bond Engine whilst spacing out during a lecture as an undergraduate. And had then caught the attention of IPRE because of how he’d derailed the lecture by explaining his concept to the luckless lecturer who had called him out. IPRE had initially classed him as either a genius or insane, and the jury was still out by the time the Starblaster launched. Sure, he could focus on the big danger when he was in emergency mode, but…

If he was focussed on something in the realms of the theoretical, the arcane, mathematical, or any combination of the three… he would almost starve to death without noticing the surrounding world. Lup used to feed him with Dove Spoons on their mission, and still would on occasion. Much to the amusement of their children.

Kravitz processed the rest of the vegetables. He couldn’t whir through them like Taako did, all flashing blades and blurring speed, but he did get most of it done before Barry managed to hurt himself. Again. In crisis mode, Barry was a level-headed fighter/mage with an eye for the enemy’s weak points and a go-getter attitude. Out of that mode, he was a helpless ruin of a nerd that made bystanders wonder how he made it as far as fifty, let alone one hundred. He put down his blade -carefully- and helped Barold patch his useless nerd self up. “The blade’s supposed to point  _ away _ from your meaty bits, Barry.”

“Yeah, I know,” he sighed. “I swear it jumped me.”

“Lucky I didn’t wake Lup for this,” Kravitz joked. “She swore she’d rub madness pepper juice into your next kitchen injury.” He hummed some healing notes, letting the fabricated flesh of Barry’s mortal guise knit as if it had never been sundered.

Barry laughed. “Yeah, she would.”

Those two had a strange and interesting relationship. But then, Kravitz had read the original draft of the twins’ cookbook,  _ Don’t Fuck This Up! _ The threats within those illuminated pages were creative, vicious, detailed, and unnervingly probable, given what he’d seen Taako doing in combat.

All of the Seven Birds had a weird relationship. All were willing to die for each other. One had been willing to cut all ties and spend the rest of their life alone to save the others. There had been death threats between all of them, and one had mutilated another to save a life. And now? Four of them were born to the other three.

Family all over again.

When Taako left this life for his next one, Kravitz would retire from his duties and get a new mortal life. So would Barry. Because the bonds they made were just as important as the ones they were going to make in the next life.

Somewhere, out there, Julia’s soul was in a new body. A new body just learning the alphabet. Running through fields after their parents. Enjoying a new life.

Kravitz had to wonder how they would meet. What Istus had planned for them all.

He got back to finishing up the soup. And started some of Taako’s most efficacious tea. Lup complained about the flavour. Taako could not, of course. What with his beverage curse.


	22. Chapter 22

Nino was the bolder one, always sticking up for his older brother. Though they looked identical, you could easily tell which one was which by the presence of bandaids somewhere on his person. Eba was shyer and bookish, and possibly the sole reason why Nino kept out of bigger trouble than he seemed to want.

Ali was the one always playing around with plants. Weaving them. Making daisy chains. Crafting little nests and putting them up in trees for birds. Tae was the astronomer. Night had him out and staring at the sky. Drawing the craters in the moons and connecting the dots in the sky. Tae never got lost, when the four of them went out roaming.

They were the safest kids in all of Faerun. Everywhere they went, together or apart, they were followed. By a raven. By a small host of butterflies. By sweetly singing songbirds who also had a reputation for viciously guarding their nests. By one of those loudmouth didjaknow kids, or by a remarkably spry grandparental type with sharp eyes, sharp wit, and a seemingly eternal supply of small candies.

All avatars of the Raven Queen, Istus, Pan, or Oghma.

And that was when they weren’t tailed by a polymorphed Taako, who chose to look like one of the village mongrels. Or a bright, orange and red bird that many could mis-identify as a phoenix. And if either of  _ those _ animals thought the children were at risk, there would be hell to pay.

One did not  _ fuck _ with the kids of the Seven Birds.

“Hey there, kids,” said a familiar voice.

Nino rushed in, yelling as he charged. Mookie the Fighter caught him and swung him around and gave him a noogie. But in the friendliest possible way, because he was their Unca Mook. They were head and shoulders taller than him, and their Aunty Mave, and they didn’t care. This part of their family was fun.

Aunty Mave was more serene, and welcomed the shyer Eba into her skirts, but Ali always managed to climb onto her hip and give her a full-body squeeze. Even though that was starting to get difficult, now.

“I lead everyone here,” boasted Tae. “I knew the way.” They were all ten. And headed to their first Adventure Camp.

“You four are going to be quite the band of brothers,” smiled Aunty Mave.

“We’re not quite brothers,” said Eba. “We’re… uhm… Different.”

“We’re all built like Apa,” said Nino, master of  tact. “With girl bits and boy bits.”

“We peeked,” said Ali.

Aunty Mave said, “Of course you did…” and rolled her eyes and put him down. Somewhere in the distance, a False Phoenix squeaked and fell off its branch.

“All right you four,” said Unca Mook. “This is a special family privilege. We let Angus McDonald in early because he was family. You guys aren’t teens yet and we expect you to stay safe. Let the bigger kids take the hits. If you  _ have _ to pitch in, use the distance stuff.”

“Magic?” murmured Eba.

“Bows an’ arrows,” cheered Nino.

“Projectiles,” suggested Tae.

“Proper prayers,” said Ali. “So the gods can smite them and stuff?”

Aunty Mave had another sidelong glance for Ali. “Only if you’re good at being a cleric,” she allowed. “I am. So when you shoot yourself in the archery field, I’ll be able to heal you properly.”

“I’m not going to shoot myself,” protested Ali.

“Someone always does,” said Unca Mook. “It better not be any of you four.”

“Yeah. The twins’ll kill us.”

Unca Mook let Tae help lead them on their way. Aunty Mave took up the rear, herding the four hyperactive kids and pointing out all the useful plants along the way to anyone who would listen.

And a single raven glided silently from tree to tree behind them. Keeping watch.

Their adventures were just beginning.

* * *

 

Jolie wasn’t entirely comfortable with this whole Adventure Camp thing. She was three times the size of any of the others, and twice as muscular. As a Troll, she might be the first of her tribe to mingle with the pinkskins, and she felt like this was a bad, bad idea.

And then she saw  _ them. _

Four of them with two of the Camp Guides, the Highchurches.

Skin like night. Flyaway hair like a nebula. Elven lankiness, but they were definitely not Elves. One of them rushed forwards, but stopped and stared openly at Jolie.

_ Those eyes are amazing, _ she thought.

“Wow,” said the kid. “You’re fantastic. You’re the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen. Hi. I’m Nino.” They offered their hand.

“Jolie. I’m a Troll. Uh. What are you?”

“Oh I’m new. I’m a Staffbearer.”

Soulmates shook hands. They wouldn’t be apart for very much of their lifetimes thereafter.


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just want to note that at this point in the story, including the Stolen Century, Taako has been alive for nine hundred slutty, slutty years.

The Reaper who finally took Taako to the Astral Plane was not Kravitz. Not Barry. Her Ladyship Death had more than just the immediate family. She claimed thousands as her children. This frail-looking Tiefling seemed young, but Taako wasn’t about to run or cause trouble.

Lup was waiting for him in Magnus’ old cabin on the other side. Where Istus was already sitting with a pot of Astral Tea.

He didn’t have a chance to greet anyone.

“One minute, Koko? You outlived me by  _ one minute? _ How petty can you get?”

Taako grinned. “Last survivor of the Starblaster babe,” he preened. “And I can be one minute petty, my dear. Worth a whole lifetime of the Forty-five Minutes Argument.”

Istus chuckled as she knitted. “Would you separate? Spend a literal lifetime apart?”

United. “What? NO!” and they clung to each other.

“Womb mates, room mates,” said Lup.

“Deffo share a tomb mates,” said Taako. He linked arms with his sister. “We’re a package deal.”

“I’m not leaving him behind, he’s not leaving me,” said Lup.

“Even though she’s a massive pain in the ass,” said Taako.

“Speaking of pains in the ass,” said Kravitz, arriving by portal. “You both left us quite the mess.”

Taako left his sister to join his arms. “Istus gave me the death I wanted, darling. Same with Lup. Payment for services we’re about to render.”

“Balls deep in someone criminally young, I remember,” sighed Kravitz. “I had to call some people, love. Including some clean-up crew.” His eyes were wet. “I had to pry your body off me, Dove.”

“Won’t do it again,” said Taako, kissing his tears away. “We don’t have a lot of time, bone daddy. Still want to be childhood sweethearts with me?”

“Childhood sweethearts,” he said.

“Yup,” said Lup. She took Barry into her arms. She had died in his wings. Peacefully and in her sleep. And not, for example, in the peak of ecstasy whilst his lifemate was appearing to be very young indeed. And then not leaving her dead body weighing down her husband. Like Taako did.

“All right. I get it. I already said I’m not doing it again,” grumbled Taako.

“Still didn’t say you’re sorry,” coached Lup.

“I’m not  _ that _ sorry,” said Taako. “That’s one death that’s totally worth it.”

“Not,” sighed Kravitz, “to your lover.”

There was a moment of silence as the metaphorical penny dropped. “Oh.  _ Oh. _ Oh shit. Oh shit, I’m so sorry Krav. I was just thinking of me. Again. I’m a gigantic shit. Are you sure you want to be childhood sweethearts with me?”

Kravitz swept him up in his arms. “This next time around, you won’t have any reasons to be a colossal asshole.”

“It’s your big dick that made it that way,” Taako flirted.

“Stoppit…” warned Lup.

Barry cosied up to Kravitz. “Hey. This time, you want to be stunningly beautiful Elf twins? We could do double dates.”

“Please,  _ please _ do not spend another fifty years mooning over each other? I. Will. Barf. Every time I see it.”

“And I,” said Kravitz, “will rat on you at every opportunity.”

The four stared at each other.

“Deal.”

“Deal.”

“Deal.”

“Deal.”

Istus pulled her threads, and a new story came together.

* * *

 

They were twelve, and the school they were in was  _ hell. _ Sava had decided this in all of five seconds after being separated from his brother. But he wasn’t going to cry like the other newcomer was already doing.

“This is Nen, and ze is one of the new people, the Staffbearers,” said their teacher. “They’re descended from Elves, just like most of you, but they’re very different. Nen is not a boy  _ or _ a girl, so we use the--?”

“Third pronoun,” sighed Sava along with the rest of the class. He wished they could get on with the songs of learning. He much preferred the singing. And the sooner the singing was done, the sooner they could break for lunch and Sava could make sure his brother Tapi was okay. Tapi was an even worse crybaby than this kid.

And then Sava remembered that all Staffbearers were born as twins.

This wasn’t a kid who was away from hir parents for the first time, but ze was also away from hir  _ sibling _ as well. All of Sava’s bitterness and resentment got lost and replaced with sympathy.

Nen was staring at the floor and rubbing at hir right hand. Just like Sava was rubbing at his left. Rubbing at the  _ empty _ hand.

Teacher herded Nen into the circle and Sava scootched around to be next to hir.

“Hey,” he whispered. “They took my twin away, too. I think that’s mean.”

Nen sniffled. “M’ whole fam’ly’s gone.”

Poor kid. This was hir first day. “It’s going to be okay, I promise. It’s not forever. You can see your sib again in lunch break. A-and your parents come back in the afternoon.” This didn’t seem to have much impact. “You can hold my empty hand with yours?” Sava offered his left hand for Nen’s right.

Nen looked like ze was made out of night. Constellations in hir skin and moonlight in hir hair. Kind’a pretty, actually. And their hands fit together well.

The learning songs were good, and Nen’s grip relaxed in his as the songs grew familiar. And by the time they were ready for lunch and play, ze had no more reason to be sad.

“I like your singing voice,” said Nen as they lined up to file out.

And across the hallway, also holding hands, was Tapi. Holding hands with another Staffbearer who looked a lot like Nen.

Tapi was actually  _ smiling. _ “Sava! I made a friend! This is Pip, ze’s a-- oh.” Now he realised exactly what was going on.

Four faces, two looking a lot like each other, smiled in unison.

Faerun had no idea what troubles began in that elementary hallway, but the legends would tell of the Unstoppable Four.


	24. An Epilogue of Sorts

_ From the Encyclopaedia Faerunica: _

Staffbearers: A divinely ordained species originating roughly 130 AHW [After Hunger War] and directly descended from The Twins of Story and Song. The people are generally characterised by dark, almost night-black skin scattered with golden freckles, and dark hair shot through with filaments of gold or, in the case of Lup Blujeen descendants, gold and silver. Staffbearers are the only known species of intersex peoples and are unusually fecund.

They are the only species capable of taking up the Bulwark Staff and guarding it without falling under its thrall, thus protecting Faerun from the artifact’s deadly influence. Thus, you will find many Staffbearers as members of the Bureau of Benevolence.

Staffbearers typically live up to seven hundred years, and are foretold to breed true for “Seven times seven generations” [c.  _ The Gifts of Istus for the Seven Birds _ by Amblerose Pinionquill], and since a Staffbearer generation is roughly five hundred years, the blessings of Istus are not due to expire until 24650 AHW.

Language:  _ Na’an. _ Lit, “Us”.

Traditions: Staffbearers maintain many Elven traditions, but one is uniquely their own. Known as  _ Souling _ or  _ Being Souled, _ some Staffbearers are said to be the reincarnations of one or more of the Seven Birds. The Twins, for example, are never reborn singly. This is not an exact science and Souling is usually a claim held by the ones who hold the soul in question. Though most Staffbearers take on a mate of each gender, Souled Staffbearers usually maintain ties to one soulmate. Often for the entirety of their life. The soul claims are:

Davsoul - reincarnations of Davenport,  _ The Wordless One. _ Explorer and seeker of adventure. Often excels at navigation, but can have a great love of astronomy. Often natural commanders and capable of performing under pressure.

Lucresoul or Lusoul - reincarnations of Lucretia,  _ The Lonely Journal Keeper. _ Bookish, quiet, and a seeker of knowledge in all its forms. When thrust into command, will perform well. Often has a weakness in the field of planning ahead.

Mersoul - reincarnations of Merle,  _ The Peacemaker. _ Easy-going, choosing to see the brighter side of life. Excel at negotiations, but not necessarily very good at being clerics. Unnaturally fond of gardening.

Magsoul - reincarnations of Magnus,  _ The Protector. _ Highly protective, generous, and kind. Prone to rushing in and performing bizarre actions for the goofs.

Barsoul or Silsoul - reincarnations of Barry,  _ The Lover. _ Nerdy, intelligent, and affectionate. Excellent at mathematics. Never reborn without  _ The Twins. _ Sometimes reborn with  _ The Reaper. _

Taaksoul or Twinsoul - reincarnations of Lup and Taako,  _ The Twins. _ One will be affiliated with fire. The other will be strong at transformative works. Both will excel at cooking. Inexorably linked with  _ The Lover _ and  _ The Reaper. _ May be kleptomaniacs.

Kravsoul - reincarnations of Kravitz,  _ The Reaper. _ Though not part of the Starblaster crew, his soul has allegedly been recognised as part of the lore and line-up of potential entities to be reborn. Almost always has bardic tendencies and an innate sense of the law.

Angsoul - reincarnations of Angus,  _ The Detective. _ Again, not part of the original crew, but largely recognised as the adopted son of Taako Taaco, and therefore one of the souls of lore.

Given the significant size of the Staffbearer population, it is safe to say that some Souling claims are entirely spurious.

 

END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PS: If y’all want to do reincarnation souling AU’s, fucking go for it. My muse is sated with this dang idea. Just let me know because I can’t resist a good sweetheart shmoop.
> 
> Thanks everyone for staying with me through this entire bizarre thing. Your comments have given me extra years of life. At this rate, immortality is mine. Mua-hahahaha...
> 
> There's still a while to go before I finish my _next_ fanficcery for y'all, so stay tuned to what passes for my life at internutter.org :D This is also the hub for everything else I'm doing in the meanwhile, including novels, attempting to gain a professional agent, fanficcery, and bloggishness. Or you can put your oar in at my plot kittens file here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BjGBO71GuvFf4N_D3MfmvHH5xXfCWzHmPXIdOz1j_Eo/edit?usp=sharing
> 
> I welcome comments and avaricious pleas as to which title to work on next. After I finish the other one(s) I'm working on.


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